[Characteristics of blood circulation disorders in meningococcal meningoencephalitis]

Studies of liquorologic, hemodynamic, electrophysiologic, and biochemical characteristics of the blood, carried out over the course of the disease in 110 patients with purulent meningoencephalitis of meningococcal etiology, complicated by development of high intracranial hypertension, have revealed a hypokinetic type of circulation, characterized by reduced heart performance and elevated afterload, in the majority of the examinees during the acute period of the disease. Among the causes contributing to the formation of the hypokinetic type are inflammatory and dystrophic changes in the myocardium, deterioration of the blood rheology (of the high blood viscosity syndrome type), and vasopressor effect of elevated intracranial pressure (Cushing's phenomenon) resultant from brain edema developing in the majority of patients. The findings evidence the leading role of intracranial pressure elevation in the origin of increased tone of resistive vessels and in the development of macro- and microcirculatory disorders in the acute phase of the disease.