Lactate in the liquor

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

The concentration of lactate in the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) or liquor correlates with its concentration in blood. Determining the lactate in the CSF is critical in differential diagnosis of bacterial or virus meningitis: in bacterial meningitis the value is always over 3.33 mmol/L, and in viral meningitis is less than 2.78 mmol/L.