SAR Journal of Medical Biochemistry
Volume-2 | Issue-01
Case Report
Infantile Spasm with Computed Tomographic Features of Bilateral Intracerebral Hemispheric Infarcts: A Case Report
Sule MB, Umar AU, Gele IH, Hafsat AR, Umar FK, Joshua GK
Published : Jan. 18, 2021
Abstract
Infantile spasm also known as West syndrome is a devastating form of an early infantile encephalopathy, and belongs to the group of drug resistant epilepsy, with an incidence of about 0.25-0.42 in every 1000 children. This is an eight-month-old male infant who was referred for a contrast enhanced computed tomography scan (CECT) of the head on account of frequent stiffness of the both upper and lower limbs and the trunk since birth. He also has poor developmental milestones; poor suckling, neck control, social smile and inability to sit or crawl. The CECT showed an elongated and summit shaped skull on the scout image, with associated multiple non-enhancing oval areas of hypodensities in both cerebral hemispheres, poor grey-white matter interphase, prominent sulci, gyri, ventricular system and basal cisterns, with thickened gyri-pachygyria. The report of the electroencephalogram (EEG) showed spikes of activity in the brain that is referred to as hypsarrhythmia. Infantile spasm was diagnosed in a child with triad infantile spasms, neurodevelopmental retardation and EEG findings of hypsarrhythmia most likely from multiple cerebral infarcts was established. We report the case of infantile spasm with CECT features of cerebral hemispheric infarcts due to its rare nature and peculiar presentation.