Hepatitis E virus infection and acute non-traumatic neurological injury: A prospective multicentre study.

Background & Aims: Hepatitis E virus (HEV) has been associated with a number of neurological syndromes, but causality has not yet been established. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between HEV and neurological illness by prospective HEV testing of patients presenting with acute non-traumatic neurological injury.

Methods: Four hundred and sixty-four consecutive patients presenting to hospital with acute non-traumatic neurological illnesses were tested for HEV by serology and PCR from four centres in the UK, France and the Netherlands.

Complications following sural and peroneal nerve biopsies.

Nerve biopsy is used as part of the investigation of patients with peripheral neuropathy and is particularly useful in confirming the diagnosis of peripheral nerve vasculitis. Previous studies have suggested that sampling the peroneal nerve, in combination with peroneus brevis, is more sensitive than the sural nerve for this diagnosis but there are no published data on the complication rate of peroneal nerve biopsies. We have assessed the complications in 50 patients undergoing nerve biopsy, and have shown that although biopsy of the peroneal nerve may result in a larger area of sensory loss in some patients, other complications are not increased when compared with sural nerve biopsy.