Experience with ventriculo peritoneal shunts at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu

In a study of 212 children at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu who received ventriculo peritoneal shunt for hydrocephalus over a 13-year period (1977-1989, 14 had infected shunts and one developed shunt nephritis. Staphylococcus aureus was responsible for 36.4% of the positive cultures and was responsible for the only case of shunt nephritis. This is about the fourth case of shunt nephritis associated with Staphylococcus aureus shunt infection, in the literature. The pertinent features of this case were intraventricular haemorrhage as the cause of the hydrocephalus, frequent revision of shunts before the onset of nephritis and full recovery following intravenous antibiotic therapy and reimplantation of a new shunt.