Dengue-Associated Acute Necrotizing Encephalopathy Is an Acute Necrotizing Encephalopathy Variant Rather than a...

Bilateral hemorrhagic thalamic lesions in dengue encephalitis resemble lesions seen in acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE). We investigate whether dengue-associated ANE (DANE) should be considered an ANE variant or a mimic.

Systematic review of dengue encephalitis literature from PubMed and SCOPUS (inception to December 31, 2022). Diagnostic criteria for ANE, acute encephalitis (AE), acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), and infection-triggered encephalopathy syndromes were applied.

Data on 162 patients (median age 20 [0.4 to 79] years; 69 [42.3%] female; 72 [44.4%] aged ≤18 years) from 103 articles were analyzed. DANE (62, 38.3%) was the commonest, followed by AE (56, 34.6%) and ADEM (27, 16.7%). The main clinical features were fever (100%), thrombocytopenia (79.0%), headache (57.8%), and seizures (43.7%). Patients with DANE had earlier neurological deterioration (3.5 [1 to 8] vs 5 [1 to 14] days in other encephalitis syndromes, P = 0.0127), seizures (54.2% vs 37.4%, P = 0.0471), higher cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) protein (0.92 [0.18 to 4.8] vs 0.73 [1 to 16] g/L, P = 0.0469), thalamic (100% vs 8.0%) and hemorrhagic brain lesions (73.3% vs 7.5%, P < 0.0001). CSF pleocytosis and positive CSF dengue IgM/viral polymerase chain reaction were reported in 66.7% and 78.6% with DANE. Mortality was 16.1% in DANE, and 40.6% of survivors had disability. High-risk ANE severity scores predicted poor outcomes (positive predictive value 64.3% [95% confidence interval 38.8% to 83.7%]).

DANE differs from other dengue encephalitis syndromes and is clinicoradiologically indistinguishable from sporadic ANE with sufficient evidence to be considered an ANE variant.