An overview of medical applications in meningitis detection

Abstract

Meningitis remains one of the common infections among young children with high morbidity and mortality rates. In Southeast Asian, only few studies were reported published which evaluated meningitis clinically in the last two decades. Similarly, few studies in Malaysia evaluated meningitis among adolescents and children. Globally, more than one million cases with 135,000 deaths has been recorded yearly, and in Malaysia, severe neurological complications occurs in 9-25% of cases which affirms the most serious risk manifests from bacterial meningitis. Therefore, early detection and effective treatment are required before the irreversible damages occur. This paper reviews the current states and perspectives of diagnostic techniques on meningitis detection. Currently, there are three diagnostic techniques available for meningitis detection, such as blood cultures, spinal tap (lumbar puncture), and imaging techniques (CT scan, MRI, EIT, Ultrasonography, Nuclear imaging and X-ray). However, these techniques have limitations that may limit the chances of carrying out the early detection of the disease. The essence of this review is that meningitis requires an effective technique that is capable of carrying out the early detection of the disease by differentiating normal people and Meningitis infected patients so as to promote longevity worldwide. In this review magnetic induction tomography (MIT) technique is proposed to diagnose meningitis earlier as it is non-intrusive, non-invasive, contactless, and electrode-less imaging technique which does not expose the patients to a harmful radiation.