Concurrent transverse myelitis and acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy.

A woman in her 40s presented with thoracic banding dysaesthesia and lower motor neuron weakness. Spinal imaging revealed a short segment of transverse myelitis and neurophysiology was suggestive of concurrent acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. The patient improved with consecutive intravenous immunoglobulin and methylprednisolone treatment. Acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy is a progressive immune-mediated peripheral neuropathy which responds to intravenous immunoglobulin or plasmapheresis, whereas transverse myelitis is a central inflammatory syndrome usually treated with corticosteroid. We highlight differentiating features of the clinical presentation and the utility of investigations such as neurophysiology and MRI along with a review of treatment and the role for corticosteroid therapy.

Neurosyphilis presenting as limbic encephalitis.

A man in his 50s presented with focal seizures and was found to have an inflammatory cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) with bilateral mesiotemporal lobe hyperintensity on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain. Corticosteroid treatment was initiated for management of limbic encephalitis. Focal seizures, imaging abnormalities and inflammatory CSF persisted despite treatment and the patient was found to have neurosyphilis after developing neuropsychiatric symptoms. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted bacterial infection with multisystem involvement including neurological and psychiatric manifestations. Case reports have emerged of neurosyphilis presenting as limbic encephalitis with CSF pleocytosis and temporal lobe hyperintensity on MRI of the brain. Persistence of CSF or MRI abnormalities despite immunosuppressive therapy for limbic encephalitis should prompt investigation for alternate causes of chronic meningoencephalitis, which can occasionally include neurosyphilis.