A Rare Etiology for Ascending Paralysis in an Infant

Keisuke Abe; Chanel Casamina; Natascha Ching; Keith K Abe; Marian Melish; Karen S Thompson; Asim A Ahmed; Prashant J Purohit

doi:10.1093/jpids/piac048

A Rare Etiology for Ascending Paralysis in an Infant

J Pediatric Infect Dis Soc. 2022 Oct 25;11(10):448-451. doi: 10.1093/jpids/piac048.

Authors

Keisuke Abe¹, Chanel Casamina², Natascha Ching², Keith K Abe², Marian Melish², Karen S Thompson³, Asim A Ahmed⁴, Prashant J Purohit²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Emergency Medicine, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.
² Department of Pediatrics, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
³ Department of Pathology, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
⁴ Vice President of Medical Affairs, Karius, Redwood City, California, USA.

PMID: 35802023
DOI: 10.1093/jpids/piac048

Abstract

An 11-month-old male infant with ascending paralysis had an unremarkable initial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis and imaging. Progressive neurological symptoms resulted in repeated CSF sampling, microscopy, and plasma microbial cell-free DNA next-generation sequencing analysis, that in combination with epidemiology, confirmed the diagnosis.

Keywords: Angiostrongylus cantonensis; ascending paralysis; eosinophilia; eosinophilic encephalomyelitis; rat lungworm; next-generation sequencing test.

© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

MeSH terms

Angiostrongylus cantonensis* / genetics
Animals
Cell-Free Nucleic Acids*
Eosinophilia* / diagnosis
Humans
Infant
Male
Paralysis / etiology
Strongylida Infections* / cerebrospinal fluid
Strongylida Infections* / complications
Strongylida Infections* / diagnosis

Substances

Cell-Free Nucleic Acids