Neurosyphilis in an eight-year-old child: usefulness of the SPECT study

LAPUNZINA PD; ALTCHEH JM; FLICHMAN JC; FREILIJ H

PEDIATRIC NEUROLOGY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 1998 vol. 18 p. 81 - 84

0887-8994

An 8-year-old boy with symptomatic late-onset congenital syphilis is reported.The child had been undertreated when he was 78 days of age, but his clinical and serologic follow-up did not occur until he was 3 years of age. At that time, hewas asymptomatic, and cerebrospinal fluid disclosed not only hypercellularity butalso a reactive Venereal Disease Research Laboratories test. Although he was thenretreated at 4 years of age, he developed seizures. Cranial computed tomographyand magnetic resonance imaging were normal, but two single photon emissioncomputed tomography scans performed when he was 5 years of age and then 7 yearsof age demonstrated areas of hypoperfusion that closely agreed with thealterations on electroencephalograph. Brain single photon emission computedtomography was able to detect cerebral nervous system abnormalities in this youngpatient with neurosyphilis, whereas other image studies did not