My watch list
my.bionity.com  
Login  

Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis



Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis
Classification & external resources
ICD-10 G04.0
ICD-9 323.61
DiseasesDB 158
eMedicine neuro/500 
MeSH D004673

Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) is an immune mediated disease of brain. It usually occurs following a viral infection or vaccination, but it may also appear spontaneously. It is similar in some ways to multiple sclerosis, and is considered part of the Multiple sclerosis borderline.

There are multiple inflammatory cell deposits in the brain, particularly in the section called white matter. Although it occurs in all ages, most reported cases are in children and adolescents.

Presentation

It has an abrupt onset and a monophasic course. Symptoms usually begin 1-3 weeks after infection or vaccination. Major symptoms include fever, headache, drowsiness, seizures and coma. Although initially the symptoms are usually mild, later in the course of the disease patients may even die, if they are not treated properly. Some patients recover completely, while others have permanent neurological impairments.

Treatment

The first treatment is usually steroids and intensive care is often required.



 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Acute_disseminated_encephalomyelitis". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
Your browser is not current. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 does not support some functions on Chemie.DE