Your patient is a 49-year-old male complaining of a headache and weakness of his left arm, accompanied by nausea and vomiting. the information that would be most in differentiating a brain abscess from a brain tumor is whether or not the patient:

The right answer is Nuchal rigidity.

The meningeal syndrome is characterized by stiffness (rigidity) of the neck, intense headache and increased sensitivity to strong stimulation with sometimes vomiting. This syndrome results from inflammation of the meninges, particularly the dura mater or arachnoid. The causes can be multiple: viral or bacterial meningitis, meningeal hemorrhage.

* Etiological assessment will look for a meningeal pneumococcal, meningococcal, Listeria monocytogenes or Haemophilus influenzae infection generally confirmed by bacteriological analysis performed in the laboratory after cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sampling. A lumbar puncture discovers in case of bacterial infection, a generally cloudy CSF (leading to brain abscess).

* Viral meningitis leaves a clear CSF, they originate in the majority of cases, Enterovirus (Poliovirus, Coxsackie virus, Echovirus) but also herpes viruses.