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Tuberculous Encephalitis

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Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis

Abstract

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is one of the most frequent aetiologies of infectious encephalitis, the most frequent remaining HSV. Its pathophysiology doesn’t differ from other non-pulmonary tuberculosis: it results from bacteremia and then locates in the brain. Microbiological diagnosis is not easy to obtain, as bacterial inoculum is low. PCR tests are not highly sensitive, so far. Remarkable feature in CSF biology is high protein level, significatively different from other aetiologies. Clinical presentation doesn’t differ from other encephalitis except the delay between the onset and diagnosis (10 days vs 2). The treatment drugs are the same than in other tuberculous localization, with a longer duration (12 months). Despite an adequate treatment, case fatality rate reaches 33% (9% in other encephalitis cases).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Infectious Diseases department. CHU and University Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France

    Jean Paul Stahl

  2. ESGIB (European Study Group for the Infections of the Brain), Dakar, Senegal

    Jean Paul Stahl

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  1. Jean Paul Stahl
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Correspondence to Jean Paul Stahl .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Infectious Disease & Clinical Microbiology, Onsekiz Mart University, Canakkale, Turkey

    Alper Sener

  2. ID-IRI Lead Coordinator, Department of Infectious Disease & Clinical Microbiology, Ankara, Turkey

    Hakan Erdem

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Stahl, J.P. (2019). Tuberculous Encephalitis. In: Sener, A., Erdem, H. (eds) Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04744-3_9

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