Acute encephalitis in Swiss children: aetiology and outcome

Since published data on the course and prognosis of encephalitis in Central Europe is limited, we retrospectively evaluated 104 children with either acute strict sense encephalitis (n = 80) or acute cerebellar ataxia (n = 24) treated at the Department of Pediatrics, University of Bern, Switzerland, between 1980 and 1991. Of the 80 patients with strict sense encephalitis, four (5%) died acutely and 28 (36%) of 78 followed up had sequelae - eight patients with severe, six with moderate and 14 with mild sequelae. Young age and seizures were shown to correlate with poor outcome. Among the 24 patients with acute cerebellar ataxia, there was no fatal outcome and none developed severe residua, but six had mild and one had moderate sequelae. Initial cerebrospinal fluid white cell count was significantly higher in these children with sequelae compared with those without any sequelae after acute cerebellar ataxia.