ABSTRACT
A 20-year-old male presented to our facility with a worsening sensation of "the room spinning around" himself for the past three weeks. In the last week, he began to experience daily spells lasting for three hours each without losing consciousness. The patient had recently migrated from Central America six weeks prior to admission. On physical examination, his vital signs were within normal limits, with no focal neurological deficits. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain revealed a cystic-appearing lesion in the fourth ventricle with associated mass effect on the posterior aspect of the brainstem and mild periventricular edema. Laboratory studies were unremarkable except for a positive anti-cysticercus IgG antibody, which confirmed the diagnosis of neurocysticercosis. Initially, surgery was considered, but the neurosurgeons advised medical management due to the small size of the lesion. The patient was started on albendazole 400 mg orally twice daily and dexamethasone 6 mg orally daily for 14 days. The patient responded well; his symptoms resolved by the eighth day. He was discharged home to complete his treatment and remained asymptomatic at the follow-up appointment two weeks later.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Neurocysticercosis (NCC) is the most common helminthic infection of the central nervous system (CNS) caused by the larval stage of Taenia solium. Accurate and early diagnosis of NCC remains challenging due to its heterogeneous clinical manifestations, neuroimaging deficits, variable sensitivity, and specificity of serological tests. Next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based pathogen analysis in patient's cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) with NCC infection has recently been reported indicating its diagnostic efficacy. In this case study, we report the diagnosis of a NCC patient with a symptomatic history of over 20 years using NGS analysis and further confirmation of the pathology by immunological tests. CASE PRESENTATION: This study reports the clinical imaging and immunological features of a patient with a recurrent headache for more than 20 years, which worsened gradually with the symptom of fever for more than 7 years and paroxysmal amaurosis for more than 1 year. By utilizing NGS technique, the pathogen was detected in patient's CSF, and the presence of Taenia solium-DNA was confirmed by a positive immunological reaction to cysticercus IgG antibody in CSF and serum samples. The symptoms of the patient were alleviated, and the CSF condition was improved substantially after the anti-helminthic treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that combining CSF NGS with cysticercus IgG testing may be a highly promising approach for diagnosing the challenging cases of NCC. Further studies are needed to evaluate the parasitic DNA load in patients' CSF for the diagnosis of disease severity, stage, and monitoring of therapeutic responses.