Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome secondary to cytomegalovirus encephalitis: A case report

• Published in: Biomédica
• Main Authors: Luis Guillermo Uribe, María Alejandra Pérez, Camilo Andrés Lara, Natalia Rueda, Javier Augusto Hernández
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Spanish
• Published: Instituto Nacional de Salud 2017
• Subjects: Encephalitis; viral; cytomegalovirus; Korsakoff syndrome; Wernicke encephalopathy; infectious encephalitis; cytomegalovirus infections; Medicine; R; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.7705/biomedica.v37i4.3451; https://doaj.org/article/eb60fc80e80a4ad39ffa1ee776948e20

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is one of the opportunistic microorganisms with the highest prevalence in immunocompromised patients. Reactivation has decreased after the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Encephalitis has been reported in the coinfection as one of the most frequent presentations. We present the case of a young adult patient with HIV infection and rapid neurological deterioration due to classic clinical symptoms and signs of the Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, with no risk factors for thiamine deficiency, with images by nuclear magnetic resonance typical of the syndrome, and identification of cytomegalovirus in cerebrospinal fluid. The specific treatment for CMV managed to control the symptoms with neurological sequelae in progression towards improvement. This is one of the few cases reported in the literature of Wernicke syndrome secondary to cytomegalovirus encephalitis.