Table 1 Main data of previous studies that have evaluated the cerebrospinal fluid white blood cell (WBC) count during the neonatal period.

Study	No of patients	Age at LP (days)	WBC count/mm3
Roberts1	423	1	6.3 (0–17)
Naidoo2	135	0	12 (0–42)
	20	7	3 (0–9)
Sarff et al3	87	<7	8.2 (7.1) (0–32)
Pappu et al4	24	0–32	11 (1–38)
Portnoy and Olson5	64	0–42	3.73 (3.4)
Bonadio et al6	35	0–28	11.0 (10.4)
Carraccio et al7	95	0–31	6.9 (8.0)
Ahmed et al8	108	0–30	7.3 (14)
Nascimento et al9	25	1–25	4.5 (3.3)

Data are expressed as mean (SD) or mean (range).

LP, Lumbar puncture.