[Clinical variability in viral infection related acute encephalitis or encephalopathy].

Children with acute encephalopathy (AEP) or acute encephalitis(AE) show variable findings in the clinical manifestations and on the neuroimaging. Patients with AE present variable symptoms: disturbance of consciousness, seizure, ataxia, dystonia, abnormal behavior, apnea, and others. This variability depends on the location of lesions including basal ganglia, brain stem, cerebellum, or cerebral gray/white matter. In AEP, MRI findings can be categorized into (1) severe brain edema, (2) acute necrotizing encephalopathy, (3) cortical necrosis that appears 4-5 days after the onset, and (4) others. Serum AST elevates in approximately 50% of AEP patients, and among them around 60% develops DIC. The high AST group includes Reye syndrome(RS), mimic RS and AEP with shock syndrome.