Oxypurine concentration in the CSF in children with different diseases of the nervous system

Oxypurine analysis was done in the CSF of 190 children with different diseases. The patients could be divided into four groups: Group A, serving as controls, consisted of 56 children suffering from diseases without neurological signs, for example, leukaemia. 16% of them had raised hypoxanthine values greater than 7.5 mumol/l and 32% raised uric acid values greater than 12.0 mumol/l. Group B comprised 97 children suffering from diseases with neurological signs, for example, meningitis. For these patients the frequency of raised hypoxanthine and uric acid values in the CSF was twice as high as in Group A. Group C comprised 31 patients with different forms of cerebral convulsions. Among these patients 52% had raised hypoxanthine and 70% raised uric acid values. The findings of these patients are described in a previous paper (Manzke et al. 1981). Group D comprises 6 patients from whom CSF samples were taken postmortally. All these deceased patients showed extremely high hypoxanthine + xanthine and uric acid concentrations in their CSF.