RESUMO
Objective To study the clinical characteristics of epidemic Japanese encephalitis in 4 adult patients and to improve the level of diagnosis.Methods The clinical characteristics, laboratory results and MRI features of 4 adult patients with epidemic Japanese encephalitis hospitalized in our hospital between 2007 and 2008 was retrospectively reviewed and analyzed.Results All patients were sporadic.Two were female and others were male with the age from 34 to 68 years old and onset in summer and autumn.One patient had diarrhea at onset while others had fever and headache at onset.All patients had high fever and psychiatric symptoms.Two patients had respiratory failure.Obvious elevation of white cells in cerebrospinal fluid was seen in all patients and Japanese viral antibody of IgM was all positive whereas the image of MRI was abnormal only in one patient.Two patients had neurological sequelae.Conclusions The clinical manifestations of epidemic Japanese encephalitis in adults are severe and untypical and the respiratory failure is likely to occur.
