CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago doctor who has done spinal taps on two patients to rule out fungal meningitis said Monday that he expects to see more cases of the illness in Illinois as testing continues.

Dr. Rahul Khare, an emergency physician for Northwestern Medicine, said the patients he tested were frightened, but the tests showed nothing abnormal. The patients had received back injections of a possibly tainted steroid from a Massachusetts pharmacy that's been linked to an outbreak of deadly meningitis. They had symptoms that could indicate the illness.

It's confusing and frightening for patients, he said, because their back and neck pain, for which they were getting the steroid shots in the first place, can mimic symptoms of meningitis. Infected patients have had slightly worse back pain or mild headaches, for example.