Intracranial venous sinus thrombosis complicating AIDS-associated nephropathy

An alert and oriented 27-year-old African American woman with AIDS presented with a 10-day history of fever, cough productive of yellow sputum, nausea, and vomiting and a 1-day history of excruciating headache and photophobia. Her condition rapidly deteriorated into a coma with decorticate and then decerebrate posture, and she died 3 weeks later. There was evidence of extensive intracranial venous sinus thrombosis (ICVST), renal vein thrombosis (RVT), and multiple cerebral hemorrhagic infarcts due to a hypercoagulable state complicating AIDS-associated nephrotic syndrome. This is the first reported case of fatal ICVST and RVT with extensive cerebral hemorrhagic infarcts complicating nephrotic syndrome in a patient with AIDS.