Clinical characteristics of patients with Epstein Barr virus in cerebrospinal fluid

BMC Infectious Diseases

Research Article

Timi Martelius¹  Veli-Jukka Anttila¹  Maarit Palomäki²  Maija Lappalainen³ 

[1] Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Helsinki University Central Hospital, PO Box 348, 00029 HUS, Helsinki, Finland;Department of Radiology, Helsinki University Central Hospital, PO Box 340, 00029HUS, Helsinki, Finland;Department of Virology and Immunology, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Laboratory Services (HUSLAB), PO Box 400, 00029HUS, Helsinki, Finland;

关键词: Encephalitis;    Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation;    Central Nervous System Infection;    Infectious Mononucleosis;    Central Nervous System Lymphoma;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2334-11-281

 received in 2011-07-11, accepted in 2011-10-21,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe role of Epstein-Barr (EBV) virus in central nervous system (CNS) infections is not fully resolved. It is clearly associated with lymphoproliferative disease of immunosuppressed persons, and may cause encephalitis.MethodsWe reviewed the medical records, imaging and laboratory findings of all patients EBV DNA PCR positive in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) during 2000 to 2009 in the Helsinki University Central Hospital.ResultsWe identified 32 patients with EBV DNA in CSF. 11 had history of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, 7 solid organ transplantation and 5 HIV/AIDS. 5 patients had no preceding immunodeficiency.In 8 of the cases, another pathogen was identified in CSF. These were M. tuberculosis (2), T. gondii (2), Aspergillus (1), Herpes simplex virus 1 (1), C. neoformans (1) and Human herpesvirus 6 (1). Altogether in 15/32 (47%) of the cases the clinician had a strong suspicion of cause other than EBV for the patients' CNS symptoms/findings.Of note, 7 of 11 (64%) patients with stem cell transplantation had encephalitis (univariate odds ratio 5.6; confidence Interval 1.1-27.4). Of these 6 had no other pathogen identified.ConclusionsEBV DNA was often found together with other microbial findings in CSF of immunocompromised patients. EBV seems to be associated with encephalitis in stem cell transplant recipients.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Martelius et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011