Acute myelopathy with sudden paraplegia as the sole manifestation of meningococcal meningitis

Case report

English

Wanis H. Ibrahim 1, Osama R. Elalamy 1, Sanjay H. Doiphode 2, Hassan Mobyaed 3, Adham Darweesh 4

1-Department of Medicine, Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar; 2-Department of Laboratory Medicine, Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar; 3-Medicine Department, St. Michael’s Hospital, 4 CC Clinics, Toronto, ON, Canada; 4-Radiology Department, Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar

Libyan J Med 2010, 5: 4862 – DOI: 10.3402/ljm.v5i0.4862

Abstract

Acute myelopathy with sudden paraplegia is a very rare manifestation of meningococcal meningitis, with only a few cases reported in the literature. In almost all previously reported cases, other clinical manifestations of meningitis, such as fever, headache, and neck stiffness preceded acute myelopathy. In this paper, we report a case of acute myelopathy with sudden paraplegia as the sole manifestation of meningococcal meningitis, in the absence of other clinical manifestations of meningitis.

Keywords: myelopathy; meningitis; meningococci

Link/DOI: http://www.libyanjournalofmedicine.net/index.php/ljm/article/view/4862/5379