Post-Infectious Encephalomyelitis after Successful Treatment of Herpes Simplex Encephalitis with Adenine Arabinoside

Abstract

HERPES simplex virus (HSV) is now recognized as the leading cause of severe endemic encephalitis in the United States and Europe.¹ The fatality rate in patients diagnosed by virus isolation from brain is approximately 60 to 80 per cent, and many survivors are left with permanent neuropsychiatric deficits.^{2 , 3} Systemic treatment with vidarabine (adenine arabinoside, ara-A) markedly decreases the mortality of HSV encephalitis, but the effect of this therapy on overall morbidity remains to be clarified.^{2 , 4} The neurologic defects in survivors are generally assumed to be an expression of the location and extent of neural damage resulting from the hemorrhagic necrosis, . . .