Sensitivity of radionuclide isotope brain scan in cerebral melioidosis: case report.

Melioidosis, an unusual infectious disease formerly confined to the Orient, is being seen with increasing frequency in the United States. We present a report of a patient who had recently traveled in the Far East and subsequently developed pulmonary melioidosis complicated by a fatal encephalitis. Although the radionuclide brain scan was markedly abnormal, computed tomographic studies were minimally abnormal on one occasion and within normal limits on another. The radionuclide brain scan appears to have greater sensitivity in diagnosis of early encephalitis and, therefore, may be the more valuable of the two studies in the diagnosis of this disorder.