The Department of Neuroimmunology is a unique facility in the United Kingdom both in terms of service provision and as a research centre. It conducts analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for the Trust – a vital service that allows the rapid and accurate diagnosis of a multitude of acute and chronic neurological diseases. Bacterial meningitis remains one of the most devastating acute infections of the central nervous system and successful treatment of this condition requires rapid analysis of the CSF. The Department can provide results of CSF analysis within ten minutes of receiving the specimen.
In addition to processing some 2,000 CSF samples per annum from Trust hospitals, the Department also analyses approximately 5,000 samples from other national and international centres; it is thus the busiest laboratory of its type in the world. All results of analysis are held within a database which now contains almost 100,000 entries – a unique library for both clinical and research purposes.