Etiology of Brain Abscess in Patients Presenting to Neurosurgery Department of Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar

Objective: To determine the etiology of brain abscess in patients presenting to Neurosurgery Department of Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar.Materials and Methods: This retrospective study was conducted in Neurosurgery Department, Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar from March 2015 to February 2016. All patients admitted with brain abscess were included in the study while patients with meningitis, encephalitis, subdural empyema, and tuberculoma were excluded. Patient’s age, gender, pre-operative symptoms and etiology of brainabscess were recorded on a designed Proforma from hospital charts.Results: Out of 42 patients, males were 30 (71.42%) while females were 12 (28.58%). They were most common in first three decades, having total number of patients of 35 (83.33%) with the mean age of 30.15 ± 2 SD. The three most common pre-operative symptoms were fever, headache and vomiting. Most common sources of infect-ion were otitis media 20 (47.61%) and congenital heart diseases 7 (16.66%). In 31 (73.80%) patients temporal and parietal lobes were involved.Conclusion: Brain abscess is common in young to middle age population due to unhygienic status of ears with malepredominance. Temporal lobe of the brain is most common site of abscessand majority of the patients present with nausea, vomiting, fever, signs of raised intracranial pressure and meningism