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. 2011 Nov;50(11):1005-9.
doi: 10.1177/0009922811410309. Epub 2011 May 27.

Incidence of traumatic lumbar puncture: experience of a large, tertiary care pediatric hospital

Miguel M Glatstein  1 , Merav Zucker-Toledano, Alper Arik, Dennis Scolnik, Asaf Oren, Shimon Reif
Affiliations

Incidence of traumatic lumbar puncture: experience of a large, tertiary care pediatric hospital

Miguel M Glatstein et al. Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2011 Nov.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to establish the incidence of traumatic or unsuccessful lumbar punctures (LPs) in the authors' institution. This is a prospective study. Traumatic LP was defined as >400 red blood cells (RBCs) and unsuccessful LP as failure to obtain cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) after the first LP attempt. A total of 127 CSF were recorded over 1 year. The incidence of a traumatic LP was 27/103 (26.2%) using the sitting position and 3/24 (12.5%) in infants and children using the lying position. In total, 33 (26%) CSF samples had 0 RBCs. The incidence of traumatic LP was 24% when the procedure involved one LP and 50% when more than one attempt was required. RBC count was significantly lower in cases requiring only one attempt (P = .0074). Incidence of traumatic LP was independent of physicians' experience, sedation use or time of procedure, suggesting an intrinsic factor as the cause of traumatic LPs.

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