Title: Rasmussen's Encephalitis - Chronic Focal Encephalitis (CFE) - A Rare Entity
Authors: Dr Surender Kumar, Dr Hitender Kumar
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v5i3.145
Abstract
Rasmussen's encephalitis, also known as chronic focal encephalitis (CFE), is a rare inflammatory neurological disease, characterized by frequent and severe seizures, loss of motorskills and speech, hemiparesis (paralysis on one side of the body), encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), and dementia. The illness affects a single cerebral hemisphere and generally occurs in children under the age of 10.
Advances in neuroimaging suggest that progression of the inflammatory process is seen and MRI might be a good biomarker in Rasmussen’s encephalitis.
Cerebral hemi-spherectomy remains the only cure for seizures, but there are inevitable functional compromises. Decisions of whether or when surgery should be undertaken are challenging in the absence of a dense neurological deficit, and vary by institutional experience. Further, the optimum time for surgery, to give the best language and cognitive outcome, is not yet well understood. Immuno-modulatory treatments seem to slow rather than halt disease progression in Rasmussen’s encephalitis, without changing the eventual outcome.
Keywords: Encephalitis, seizures, hemiparesis, dementia.
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Dr Surender Kumar
MD Medicine, Senior Resident, Department of Cardiology
IGMC Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India