Acute Cerebellitis in MIS-C: A Case Report.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is characterized predominantly by respiratory symptoms and has affected a small subset of children. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) has been reported in children following COVID-19. There is increasing report that COVID-19 may also lead to neurologic manifestations. Cerebellar lesions may be observed in viral infections. CASE REPORT: We report a child with MIS-C related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, who developed cerebellar lesion during the disease course. Encephalopathy was the first central nervous system symptom. His consciousness improved but he developed clinical signs of cerebellar dysfunction including ataxia, dysarthria and nystagmus. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed symmetrical pathological signal changes in both cerebellar hemispheres. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated the first child with MIS-C to develop cerebellar lesion on brain MRI, suggestive of cerebellitis.

A 53-Year-Old Man Presents to the ED With Shortness of Breath, Cough, and Fever.

CASE PRESENTATION: A 53-year-old man presented to the ED at a time of low severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, also known as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), prevalence and reported 2 weeks of progressive shortness of breath, dry cough, headache, myalgias, diarrhea, and recurrent low-grade fevers to 39°C for 1 week with several days of recorded peripheral capillary oxygen saturation of 80% to 90% (room air) on home pulse oximeter. Five days earlier, he had visited an urgent care center where a routine respiratory viral panel was reportedly negative. A COVID-19 reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction test result was pending at the time of ED visit. He reported a past medical history of gastroesophageal reflux disease that was treated with famotidine. Travel history included an out-of-state trip 3 weeks earlier, but no recent international travel.

COVID-19-related encephalopathy: a case series with brain FDG-positron-emission tomography/computed tomography findings.

AIM: The aim of this paper is to describe the clinical features of COVID-19-related encephalopathy and their metabolic correlates using brain 2-desoxy-2-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG)-positron-emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) imaging. BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: A variety of neurological manifestations have been reported in association with COVID-19. COVID-19-related encephalopathy has seldom been reported and studied. METHODS: We report four cases of COVID-19-related encephalopathy. The diagnosis was made in patients with confirmed COVID-19 who presented with new-onset cognitive disturbances, central focal neurological signs, or seizures. All patients underwent cognitive screening, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), lumbar puncture, and brain 2-desoxy-2-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG)-positron-emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) (FDG-PET/CT). RESULTS: The four patients were aged 60 years or older, and presented with various degrees of cognitive impairment, with predominant frontal lobe impairment. Two patients presented with cerebellar syndrome, one patient had myoclonus, one had psychiatric manifestations, and one had status epilepticus. The delay between first COVID-19 symptoms and onset of neurological symptoms was between 0 and 12 days. None of the patients had MRI features of encephalitis nor significant cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) abnormalities. SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR in the CSF was negative for all patients. All patients presented with a consistent brain FDG-PET/CT pattern of abnormalities, namely frontal hypometabolism and cerebellar hypermetabolism. All patients improved after immunotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: Despite varied clinical presentations, all patients presented with a consistent FDG-PET pattern, which may reflect an immune mechanism.

Neuronophagia and microglial nodules in a SARS-CoV-2 patient with cerebellar hemorrhage.

We document the neuropathologic findings of a 73-year old man who died from acute cerebellar hemorrhage in the context of relatively mild SARS-CoV2 infection. The patient developed sudden onset of headache, nausea, and vomiting, immediately followed by loss of consciousness on the day of admission. Emergency medical services found him severely hypoxemic at home, and the patient suffered a cardiac arrest during transport to the emergency department. The emergency team achieved return of spontaneous circulation after over 17 min of resuscitation. A chest radiograph revealed hazy bilateral opacities; and real-time-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 on the nasopharyngeal swab was positive. Computed tomography of the head showed a large right cerebellar hemorrhage, with tonsillar herniation and intraventricular hemorrhage. One day after presentation, he was transitioned to comfort care and died shortly after palliative extubation. Autopsy performed 3 h after death showed cerebellar hemorrhage and acute infarcts in the dorsal pons and medulla. Remarkably, there were microglial nodules and neuronophagia bilaterally in the inferior olives and multifocally in the cerebellar dentate nuclei. This constellation of findings has not been reported thus far in the context of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

A First Case of Acute Cerebellitis Associated with Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): a Case Report and Literature Review.

Novel coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2: SARS-CoV-2), which originated from Wuhan, China, has spread to the other countries in a short period of time. We report a 47-year-old male who was admitted to our hospital due to suffering from progressive vertigo and ataxia for 7 days prior to the admission. Neurological examination revealed cerebellar dysfunction, and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) depicted edema of the cerebellar hemisphere associated with leptomeningeal enhancement. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis showed mild lymphocytic pleocytosis, elevated protein, and lactate dehydrogenase. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in the oropharyngeal/nasopharyngeal and CSF specimens. As a result, treatment with lopinavir/ritonavir was initiated, and patient symptoms and signs improved significantly during the course of hospitalization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of acute cerebellitis associated with COVID-19 disease which is reported in the literature so far.