Intracerebral hematoma complicating herpes simplex encephalitis.

OBJECTIVES: To describe two patients who developed an intracranial hematoma as a complication of temporal lobe encephalitis due to herpes simplex type 1 virus, and to review the literature. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The first patient, a 45-year-old woman developed a brain hematoma in the location of the encephalitic lesion on day 9 after the onset of herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE) that required surgical evacuation. The second patient, a 53-year-old woman was being treated for HSE; on day 8 after admission a temporal lobe hematoma with midline shift was disclosed due to persistent headache. Both patients survived but were left with sequelae. We conducted a PubMed/MEDLINE search from 1986 to April 2013 on this topic. RESULTS: We have found 20 additional cases reported in the literature and review their characteristics. Hemorrhage was present on admission in 35% of pooled patients, and consistently involved the area of encephalitis. Clinical presentation of intracranial hemorrhage overlapped the encephalitic symptoms in two-thirds of the patients. Half of patients underwent surgery. Overall, mortality rate was low (5.2%), and half of patients fully recovered. CONCLUSIONS: Intracranial bleeding, although infrequent, can complicate the evolution of herpes simplex encephalitis and should be borne in mind since its presence may require neurosurgery. Although its presentation may overlap the encephalitic features, the lack of improvement or the worsening of initial symptoms, particularly during the second week of admission, should lead to this suspicion and to perform a neuroimaging study.

Prognostic factors and survival in a prospective cohort of patients with high-grade glioma treated with carmustine wafers or temozolomide on an intention-to-treat basis.

BACKGROUND: Patients with high-grade glioma can be treated with carmustine wafers or following the Stupp protocol. As far as we are aware, no scientific evidence has been published comparing the two treatments. The primary objective of this study was to analyse the survival of groups of patients with each of these treatment modalities. The secondary objective was to assess the influence of the usual prognostic factors on the patients in our hospital. METHODS: A prospective cohort of 110 patients with single, supratentorial high-grade glioma treated by craniotomy and tumour resection was retrospectively studied. Half of the patients had carmustine wafers placed during this operation while the others (55) did not, the latter group receiving first-line systemic chemotherapy on an intention-to-treat basis. FINDINGS: Patients treated with carmustine wafers had a median survival of 13.414 months compared with 11.047 in the group without implants (p = 0.856). For the overall cohort of patients, the following factors were found to influence survival: age (p < 0.0001), postoperative KPS score (p = 0.001), histological grade (p = 0.004), RPA class (p = 0.001), extent of resection (p = 0.002) and salvage surgery (p = 0.028). CONCLUSIONS: In this prospective cohort of patients, analysed on the basis of intention-to-treat at the time of the first surgery, no statistically significant differences in survival were found between the two treatment modalities (carmustine wafers vs. first-line systemic chemotherapy). On the other hand, age, preoperative KPS, histological grade, and RPA class were confirmed to be prognostic factors in this cohort. Finally, the extent of resection was also found to influence survival.