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DOI: 10.1055/s-0028-1085321
© 1979 by Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc.
Atypical Aspects of Hypertensive Encephalopathy in Childhood
Publication History
1978
1978
Publication Date:
18 November 2008 (online)
Abstract
Four patients with hypertensive encephalopathy and misleading focal symptomatology are reported in order to point out the problems of differential diagnosis. The first patient, together with a classical syndrome of hypertensive encephalopathy, had peculiar EEG features consistent with a possible diagnosis of herpes simplex encephalitis. Case 2 presented with a complex clinical syndrome associating bizarre spells suggestive of a psychiatric condition with ocular symptoms pointing to an upper brain stem involvement. The third child was remarkable because of the presence of neuroradiological signs compatible with a space-occupying lesion of the posterior fossa not eventually found after a surgical exploration performed as an emergency procedure.
The last patient had central nervous system signs in the context of a Guillain-Barré syndrome: in this case the central symptomatology would not fit the already described pattern of encephalo-myelo-radiculo-neuropathy but had to be entirely ascribed to the ill controlled arterial hypertension.
Keyword
Hypertensive encephalopathy - periodic EEG - posterior fossa mass - encephalo-myelo-radiculo-neuropathy