[Posterior reversible encephalopathy and renal failure. Value of the diffusion magnetic resonance]

Posterior reversible encephalopathy (PRE) is a radiological clinical syndrome described for the first time in 1996. The most frequent symptoms are headache, visual disorders, altered mental states and seizures. The basic characteristics is the presence of reversible cerebral injuries generally. They mainly affect the later regions of the brain of bilateral form and they are more prominent in the white matter. It is mainly associated with severe arterial hypertension of fast development and states of immunosuppression.

An 11-year-old male child with renal failure that it developed a PRE with extensive affectation corticosubcortical of the cerebral white matter of posterior predominance. Also injuries in frontal lobes, hard body and bulb existed. Its precocious diagnosis by means of conventional magnetic resonance (MR) and diffusion MR allowed a fast treatment, that caused a complete recovery, clinical as much radiological.

The MR and the diffusion MR allow to make a diagnosis of certainty of the PRE and to differentiate it from other injuries. The diffusion MR is a fast sequence and of easy essential handling in the precocious diagnosis of this syndrome.