| Hand Foot Mouth Disease with Meningomyeloencephalitis Caused by Enterovirus 71. |
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Min Seon Choi, Young Il Rho |
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Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Chosun University, Gwangju, Korea. ryoung@chosun.ac.kr |
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| Abstract |
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Hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) is a viral illness with a distinct clinical presentation of oral and characteristic distal extremity lesions. It is caused by members of the enterovirus genus, namely, coxsackievirus A16 or enterovirus 71. HFMD is more severe in infants and children than adults, but generally, the disease has a mild course and is self-limiting. However, in recent epidemiology of HFMD in Asia, severe cases with complications have been reported. Enterovirus 71 may cause myocarditis, pneumonia, and severe neurological complications such as brainstem encephalitis, aseptic meningitis, acute flaccid paralysis, meningoencephalitis, meningomyeloencephalitis, and even death. A large outbreak of HFMD in Taiwan and Singapore caused by enterovirus 71 had a high mortality rate; the deaths resulted from pulmonary hemorrhage, interstitial pneumonitis, or brainstem encephalitis. HFMD was also epidemic in Korea in the spring of 2010. Severe cases with complications including neurological complications and death have been reported in HFMD patients, thus it has become a public health issue. We report five children who had severe HFMD caused by enterovirus 71 with meningomyeloencephalitis which caused a disturbance in consciousness, motor weakness, strabismus, and voiding difficulty. There was no mortality, and no patients exhibited sequelae. |
| Key Words:
Hand-foot-and-mouth disease, Meningomyeloencephalitis |
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