[Dengue encephalitis in Argentina].

Abstract

Dengue virus is an endemic virus in Argentina that, although it was initially considered to be non-neurotropic, it is currently recognized to be neuroinvasive; thus conditioning a prevalence of neurological manifestations of up to 15% among patients. Even being considered severe symptoms, there is underdiagnoses of dengue encephalitis due to its varied clinical presentation. Neurological manifestations of dengue encephalitis can range from fever and headache to altered levels of consciousness and seizures. Although the cerebrospinal fluid may be normal in up to a third of cases, it usually presents increased protein concentration and pleocytosis. Regarding neuroimaging methods, the findings are usually varied and nonspecific, and can even be normal in up to 40-50% of cases. We present three cases of dengue encephalitis diagnosed in a university hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the clinical presentation varied from temporal-spatial disorientation to refractory convulsive status with different presentations in the cerebrospinal fluid but all with positive PCR for dengue in it and with normal neuroimaging.