Publications by authors named "Lothar Burghaus"

An Indian migrant presented with increasing neurological symptoms after an acute influenza B infection. We diagnosed progressive neurotuberculosis—a rare and difficult case of tuberculosis and influenza co-infection. It highlights the importance of broad-based diagnostics in people from low- and middle-income countries, taking into account unusual manifestations of tuberculosis.

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Background And Purpose: Status epilepticus (SE) is a neurological emergency due to prolonged seizure activity or multiple seizures without full recovery in between them. Prehospital SE management is crucial since its duration is correlated with higher morbidity and mortality rates. We examined the impact of different therapeutic strategies in the prehospital setting with a focus on levetiracetam.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to investigate the treatment practices and effectiveness of benzodiazepines (BZDs) for patients experiencing status epilepticus (SE) in Cologne over two years.
  • Out of 328 SE patients, only 72% were treated with BZDs initially, and just 21.6% received adequate doses as per guidelines; older patients and those with non-generalised seizures were less likely to be treated.
  • The findings suggest that proper BZD dosing can significantly improve outcomes in generalised convulsive SE, while aggressive treatment in non-generalised forms may worsen results, highlighting the need for more research on treatment for these cases.
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Background: Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is a core narcolepsy symptom, for which solriamfetol (Sunosi®) was recently approved in the European Union. SURWEY characterises real-world strategies used by physicians when initiating solriamfetol, and patient outcomes after follow-up.

Methods: SURWEY is an ongoing retrospective chart review conducted by physicians in Germany/France/Italy.

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Background And Purpose: Sex differences in the clinical findings and the polysomnographic presentation of patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are compelling current research issues. For example, patients suffering from obstructive sleep apnea are predominantly male. While women are older than men and tend to have a higher body mass index, men typically present with a more severe form of obstructive sleep apnea.

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Background: The "coronavirus disease 2019" (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the "severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome-coronavirus 2" (SARS-CoV-2), challenges healthcare systems worldwide and impacts not only COVID-19 patients but also other emergencies. To date, data are scarce on the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacted status epilepticus (SE) and its treatment.

Objective: To assess the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence, management and outcome of SE patients.

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Acute aortic dissection is rare but life-threatening. The symptoms depend on the localization and reduced perfusion of the downstream organs or limbs and are therefore variable. Neurological symptoms may occur that do not immediately lead to a diagnosis and thus delay the necessary therapy.

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Introduction: Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) have complex needs that range from organising one's everyday life to measures of disease-specific therapy monitoring to palliative care. Patients with MS are likely to depend on multiple healthcare providers and various authorities, which are often difficult to coordinate. Thus, they will probably benefit from comprehensive cross-sectoral coordination of services provided by care and case management (CCM).

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Background: Idarucizumab is a monoclonal antibody fragment with high affinity for dabigatran reversing its anticoagulant effects within minutes. Thereby, patients with acute ischemic stroke who are on dabigatran treatment may become eligible for thrombolysis with recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator (rt-PA). In patients on dabigatran with intracerebral hemorrhage idarucizumab could prevent lesion growth.

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Primary central nervous system vasculitis is confined to the brain and spinal cord. While serological markers of inflammation are usually normal, conventional angiography may confirm the diagnosis. The diagnostic method of choice is central nervous system biopsy.

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Status epilepticus is a neurologic emergency manifested by prolonged seizure activity or multiple seizures without full recovery of previous condition in between. The most important aim of treatment is early seizure termination, because duration of status epilepticus correlates with a higher rate of morbidity and mortality. Based on evidence from clinical trials and guidelines strategies for management of status epilepticus are provided.

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Ciguatoxine sind potente, von Mikroalgen produzierte, marine Biotoxine, die sich in tropischen Raubfischen, lokal und saisonal unterschiedlich stark, anreichern können. Kurze Zeit nach dem Fischverzehr treten gastrointestinale, neurologische und/oder kardiovaskuläre Vergiftungssymptome auf. Durch die hohe Affinität der Toxine zu neuronalen Natriumkanälen sind neurologische Symptome für Ciguatera-Vergiftungen charakteristisch.

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Objective: We wanted to identify differences in grey and white matter in essential tremor patients compared to controls in the non-motor domain, using the example of impaired verbal fluency.

Background: A disturbance of verbal fluency in essential tremor patients compared to healthy controls is behaviorally well described.

Methods: Voxel-based morphometry and tract-based spatial statistics were used to analyze structural differences in grey and white matter in 19 essential tremor patients compared to 23 age- and gender-matched controls.

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Chorea-acanthocytosis is an uncommon neurodegenerative disorder. Early diagnosis is often challenging. The triad of orofacial dyskinesia, epileptic seizures, and hyperCKemia should alert neurologists of a neuroacanthocytosis syndrome.

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Parry-Romberg syndrome is a rare disorder characterized by a progressive facial hemiatrophy of the skin, subcutaneous tissue, musculature, bone, and cartilage. It is often associated with neurological symptoms such as trigeminal neuropathy, paresthesia of the face, migraine, and seizures and can be paired with ocular problems and ipsilateral progressive body atrophy. Here, we present a young woman with progressive facial hemiatrophy, who was referred for FDG-PET/CT.

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Purpose: This non-interventional study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of intravenous lacosamide (LCM-iv) under routine conditions in daily clinical practice as a prospective registry.

Methods: Patients with any type of seizure or epilepsy syndrome were recruited in 16 neurological and neuropediatric centers in Germany if the treating physician decided to administer LCM-iv for any reason. Observation time per patient was 10 days with daily documentation of LCM-iv administration, type and frequency of seizures, currently used drugs and doses, and adverse events.

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Background: Although motor symptoms predominate in essential tremor, increasing evidence indicates additional cognitive deficits. According to the pivotal role of cognitive functioning for temporal information processing and acknowledging the relevance of temporal information processing for movement coordination, we investigated whether essential tremor patients exhibit time reproduction deficits.

Methods: A total of 24 essential tremor patients and 24 healthy controls performed sub- and suprasecond visual duration reproduction tasks of 500 to 900 milliseconds and 1.

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Some Parkinson's disease (PD) patients treated with subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) develop new-onset cognitive decline. We examined whether clinical EEG recordings can be used to predict cognitive deterioration in PD patients undergoing STN-DBS. In this retrospective study, we used the Grand Total EEG (GTE)-score (short and total) to evaluate pre- and postoperative EEGs.

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Background And Purpose: Excessive daytime sleepiness and sudden sleep attacks are the main features of narcolepsy, but rapid-eye-movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD), hyposmia, and depression can also occur. The latter symptoms are nonmotor features in idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD). In the present study, IPD-proven diagnostic tools were tested to determine whether they are also applicable in the assessment of narcolepsy.

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The association of a posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) without arterial hypertension with autoimmune-mediated inflammatory neuropathies such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is a rare and poorly understood phenomenon. To date, PRES has been described as initial manifestation, coincidental finding, or adverse event subsequent to immunomodulatory treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) in cases of axonal and demyelinating GBS as well as in Miller-Fisher syndrome (MFS). We here report a case of MFS/Bickerstaff brain stem encephalitis (BBE)-overlap syndrome and nonhypertensive PRES that occurred in close temporal association with IVIG treatment and caused stroke.

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Space-occupying brain edema may lead to a malignant course in patients with large middle cerebral artery infarction. Decompressive hemicraniectomy has to be initiated early to prevent further tissue damage. In this retrospective study, we analyzed electroencephalography (EEG) and evoked potentials (EPs), obtained within 24 h after onset of stroke, in 22 patients suffering from a large middle cerebral artery infarction.

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Background/aims: First-line treatment options for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) are corticosteroids, intravenous immunoglobulin, and plasma exchange. In a significant number of patients, first-line therapy fails, and long-term maintenance treatment still remains a therapeutic challenge. Immunoadsorption (IA) may be an alternative to classical plasma exchange in the therapy of immune-mediated neurologic diseases.

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