A case of diffuse lupus encephalopathy successfully treated with high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone.

We report a case of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in a young woman who presented a serious encephalopathy with respiratory distress and coma, after arbitrary interruption of oral corticosteroid therapy when her first pregnancy ended in abortion. The patient showed rapid improvement on methylprednisolone pulse therapy. The case suggests the utility of such a therapy in severe, non focal, CNS complications of SLE.

Brainstem auditory evoked potentials in alternating hemiplegia: ictal vs interictal assessment in one case.

The authors report a case of alternating hemiplegia (AH) in a 3yr 6m old boy who had presented, from the age of 4 months on, episodes of alternating hemi- or quadriplegia. Brainstem auditory evoked potentials were recorded both in the interictal state and, for the first time, during an attack. There was no significant difference between the two states.

Benign partial epilepsy with centrotemporal (or rolandic) spikes and brain lesion.

We describe three patients with benign partial epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECT) in association with proven brain lesion (agenesis of the corpus callosum, lipoma of the corpus callosum, and congenital toxoplasmosis, respectively). The age of onset, the ictal signs, the interictal electroencephalographic findings and the favorable outcome of epilepsy even after withdrawal of drug therapy led to the diagnosis of BECT although organic brain lesions were present. In such cases, the epilepsy should not be ascribed to the lesions but should be considered benign even though fortuitiously associated with brain lesions.

[Neurological manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus. Study of 53 cases].

The Authors submitted 53 randomly selected patients affected by systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) to neurologic evaluation to investigate the prevalence of neurologic manifestations, establish relationships to clinical and epidemiological findings and antinuclear antibodies and/or lupus anticoagulant (LAC), as well as to assess the usefulness of electroencephalogram (EEG), saccadic eye movements (SEM) analysis, brain computerized tomography (CT). Twenty-two patients (41.5%) had nervous system involvement on anamnestic and/or clinical examination: there were seizures in 5 patients, headache in 3, involuntary movements in 3, psychosis in 2 and cerebrovascular disorders in 9.