TNF and meningitis: The AUCs values for CRP, TNF-α, IL-6, PCT, andIL-1β in predicting the efficacy of dexamethasone inchildren with refractory purulent meningitis were0.877, 0.798, 0.765, 0.736, and 0.817, respectively.These values indicate good prediction performance.Notably CRP and IL-1β exhibited superior predictionperformance, as demonstrated in Table 4 andFigure 1.