Journal of neurology
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Journal of neurology · Sep 2009
Letter Case ReportsStroke in an adult with HIV infection due to carotid artery stenosis successfully treated with steroids: HIV-associated arteritis?
A 33-year-old Caucasian man with a 17-year history of HIV infection developed sudden right-sided hemiplegia, with the arm more affected than the leg, and aphasia. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain showed hemodynamic watershed stroke between the anterior and middle cerebral artery territories and an ischemic stroke within the left posterior middle cerebral artery territory. Color-coded Duplex sonography and Doppler sonography revealed hypoechogenic stenosis of the left common carotid artery, the left internal carotid artery, left external carotid artery and right internal carotid artery. An extensive diagnostic workup led us to hypothesize that HIV-associated arteritis was the cause of the stroke, and following intravenous steroid therapy, the carotid artery stenoses vanished.
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Journal of neurology · Sep 2009
Case ReportsDe novo and rescue DBS leads for refractory Tourette syndrome patients with severe comorbid OCD: a multiple case report.
Invasive treatment for Gilles de la Tourette syndrome has shown interesting results in a number of published reports; it seems to be evolving into a promising therapeutic procedure for those patients demonstrating disabling clinical pictures who are refractory to conservative treatments. There are important issues concerning the stimulated brain target, with different nuclei currently under investigation. Our group asked in this pilot study whether Tourette syndrome could be treated by tailoring specific brain targets for specific symptoms. ⋯ Following two cases where rescue anterior limb of internal capsule/nucleus accumbens leads were employed, we performed two additional procedures (anterior limb of the internal capsule plus ventralis oralis/centromedianus-parafascicularis and anterior limb of the internal capsule alone) with some mild improvement of comorbid obsessive-compulsive disorder, although the number of observations in this case series was low. Overall, the effects observed with using the anterior limb of the internal capsule either alone or as a rescue were less than expected. In this report we detail our experience with this approach.
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Journal of neurology · Sep 2009
Predicting hospital mortality using APACHE II scores in neurocritically ill patients: a prospective study.
Four versions of Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation are limited in predicting hospital mortality for neurocritically ill patients. This prospective study aimed to develop and assess the accuracy of a modified APACHE II model in predicting mortality in neurologic intensive care unit (N-ICU). A total of 653 patients entered the study. ⋯ The discrimination of the 72-h APACHE II score for cerebral infarction, intracerebral hemorrhage, and neurologic infection was satisfactory, with AU-ROC of 0.858, 0.863, and 1.000, respectively, but it was poor in discriminating for the categories of other neurologic diseases and neuromuscular disease. The results showed that our modified APACHE II model can accurately predict hospital mortality for patients in N-ICU. It is more applicable to clinical practice than the previous model because of its simplicity and ease of use.
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Journal of neurology · Sep 2009
Concomitant spinal cord and vertebral body infarction is highly associated with aortic pathology: a clinical and magnetic resonance imaging study.
The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between clinical features and imaging characteristics of spinal cord infarction (SCI). Twenty patients (11 women/9 men) were diagnosed at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital between March 1993 and March 2007. Data of clinical features, possible causes and imaging findings were collected and analyzed retrospectively. ⋯ Vertebral abnormalities are not uncommon, but easily overlooked in SCI. Furthermore, concomitant SCI and vertebral body infarctions were usually located at the thoracolumbar regions, and highly associated with patients with aortic diseases (p = 0.03, chi(2) test). An understanding of the spinal cord and vertebral vascular supply greatly benefits in early diagnosis, etiological illumination, and prognostic prediction of SCI.
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Journal of neurology · Sep 2009
Metabolic syndrome increases the risk of stroke: a 5-year follow-up study in a Chinese population.
Limited information is available on the relationship between metabolic syndrome and stroke in the Chinese population. The aim of this study was to establish the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in the Chinese population and the relationship between stroke and metabolic syndrome in that population. 2,173 subjects aged 45 years and above without a history of stroke were recruited from six communities in Chongqing city, China. The participants were followed for incident stroke events (ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke) for 5 years. ⋯ After 5-year follow-up, the survival rates of stroke events were 94.2% among those with metabolic syndrome and 96.9% among those without. As the number of metabolic syndrome components increased, survival rates decreased progressively, from 99.6% for individuals with none of the components to 90.1% for those with four to five components. The results showed that metabolic syndrome is highly prevalent among the Chinese adult population and is associated with an increased risk for both ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke.