Medical MCQ-A leukemia patient who has undergone multiple courses of chemotherapy develops herpes simplex encephalitis. Which of the following would you expect a CT scan of the patient's brain to show?

A leukemia patient who has undergone multiple courses of chemotherapy develops herpes simplex encephalitis. Which of the following would you expect a CT scan of the patient’s brain to show?

Generalized volume loss

Volume loss selectively in the basal ganglia

Volume loss selectively in the brainstem

Volume loss selectively in the temporal and frontal lobes

Question Category:

Medicine

Correct Answer:

Volume loss selectively in the temporal and frontal lobes

Description:

Herpes simplex can cause a necrotizing, hemorrhagic acute encephalitis that may rapidly produce death. The encephalitis characteristically involves the lower poions of the cerebral coex, notably the temporal lobes and the base of the frontal lobes, possibly because the infection spreads from the oropharynx. Ref: Ropper A.H., Samuels M.A. (2009). Chapter 33. Viral Infections of the Nervous System, Chronic Meningitis, and Prion Diseases. In A.H. Ropper, M.A. Samuels (Eds), Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology, 9e.

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