{"doi":"10.1093/ofid/ofaa501","title":"Cerebrospinal Analysis in Patients With COVID-19","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Assessment of the impact of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis including investigation for the presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is essential for the optimization of patient care. METHODS: In this case series, we review patients diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 undergoing lumbar puncture (LP) admitted to Columbia University Irving Medical Center (New York, NY, USA) from March 1 to May 26, 2020. In a subset of patients, CSF SARS-CoV-2 quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) testing is performed. RESULTS: The average age of 27 patients who underwent LP with definitive SARS-CoV-2 (SD) was 37.5 (28.7) years. CSF profiles showed elevated white blood cell counts and protein in 44% and 52% of patients, respectively. LP results impacted treatment decisions in 10 (37%) patients, either by change of antibiotics, influence in disposition decision, or by providing an alternative diagnosis. CSF SARS-CoV-2 qRT-PCR was performed on 8 (30%) patients, with negative results in all samples. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2, CSF results changed treatment decisions or disposition in over one-third of our patient cohort. CSF was frequently abnormal, though CSF SARS-CoV-2 qRT-PCR was negative in all samples. Further studies are required to define whether CSF SARS-CoV-2 testing is warranted in certain clinical contexts.","journal":"Open Forum Infectious Diseases","year":2020,"id":69447,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":21,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8593,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":367635,"name":"Vivian Ssonko","orcid":"0000-0002-3917-6009","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":28706,"name":"Carla F. Kim","orcid":"0000-0002-2366-9538","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":367636,"name":"Rachelle Dugue","orcid":"0000-0002-5179-4424","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":367637,"name":"Greer Waldrop","orcid":"0000-0001-6408-2330","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":367638,"name":"Prajwal Ciryam","orcid":"0000-0002-1445-0577","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":367639,"name":"Alexander M. Chong","orcid":"0000-0001-8354-5222","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105375,"name":"Jason Zucker","orcid":"0000-0001-6987-6412","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":295966,"name":"Eliza C. Miller","orcid":"0000-0002-7108-8906","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":367640,"name":"Jennifer Bain","orcid":"0000-0002-6642-8902","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":74994,"name":"Joshua Z. Willey","orcid":"0000-0001-5180-2044","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":368296,"name":"Kevin Doyle","orcid":null,"position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":266057,"name":"Amelia K. Boehme","orcid":"0000-0001-7408-1075","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":104631,"name":"Jan Claassen","orcid":"0000-0002-5893-8531","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":246804,"name":"Anne‐Catrin Uhlemann","orcid":"0000-0002-9798-4768","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":250723,"name":"Kiran T. Thakur","orcid":"0000-0003-0050-0323","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":367634,"name":"Emily Happy Miller","orcid":"0000-0002-0640-5653","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":32,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:42:22.705573Z","pmid":"33230485","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}