[The role of anaerobic bacteria in brain abscesses: a literature review].

Brain abscesses are potentially serious, life-threatening diseases that pose a complex diagnostic challenge not only to neurosurgeons but also to clinical microbiologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, infectologists. The etiology of brain abscess is usually polymicrobial, most commonly involving a variety of aerobic and obligate anaerobic bacteria. Epidemiological studies on the anaerobic etiology of brain abscesses are common between the time period of 1960s and 1980s, but today there are very few new publications on the subject. The role of anaerobic bacteria in this disease was presumably underdiagnosed for a very long time, as many laboratories did not have the adequate laboratory capabilities for their cultivation and identification. The purpose of this review is to summarize the available literature on the etiology of obligate anaerobic bacteria in brain abscesses, including their prevalence and current therapeutic recommendations.