Cerebral vasculitis caused by Talaromyces marneffei and Aspergillus niger in a HIV-positive patient: a case report and literature review

Cerebral vasculitis is a long-standing but flourishing and fadeless research topic. Infections are a frequent cause of cerebral vasculitis, vital to diagnose due to involvement of specific anti-infection treatments. A 65-year-old man visited the hospital for his neurological symptoms without obvious inducements. After admission, radiological examination and comprehensive conventional microbiological tests (CMTs) revealed suspected intracranial infectious vasculitis. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction further confirmed that his cerebral vasculitis was caused by Talaromyces marneffei (T. marneffei) and Aspergillus niger (A. niger) co-infection. The patient’s final diagnosis changed from initial herpetic encephalitis, due to the past history of cephalosome and facial herpes and non-significant antiviral therapeutic effects, to fungal cerebral vasculitis. The patient was discharged after use of targeted antifungal therapies on day 18 of his admission, and his associated symptoms disappeared completely at follow-up 3 weeks later. We first illustrated the presence of uncommon cerebral vasculitis caused by T. marneffei and A. niger in a human immunodeficiency virus-positive patient. In clinically suspected patients with infectious cerebral vasculitis, mNGS should be performed to detect potential pathogens if CMTs may not provide useful pathogenic clues, highlighting the importance of mNGS in the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases.

Intractable Progressive Cerebral Infarction with Multiple Atypical Aneurysms in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

We report a case of intractable progressive cerebral infarction with multiple fusiform aneurysms in a 34-year-old female patient with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), non-responsive to massive immunotherapy. The patient visited the emergency department with dysarthria and left-sided hemiparesis that occurred 2 days before. She was diagnosed with SLE involving the brain and received 12 cycles of cyclophosphamide 12 years prior. Brain diffusion-weighted imaging showed acute infarctions involving the pons and medulla. Additionally, multifocal microbleeding-like signals in various cisternal spaces were detected using susceptibility-weighted imaging. Digital subtraction angiography revealed multiple fusiform aneurysms. Despite antithrombotic treatment with trif lusal and immunotherapies, including corticosteroids, mycophenolate mofetil, and immunoglobulins, for cerebral vasculitis associated infarction, her neurologic deficits worsened with recurrent cerebral infarction. Further investigation for accurate diagnosis and treatment is required.

Headache in multiple sclerosis - pharmacological aspects

: For decades, headache was not considered a typical symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS) and was construed as a "red flag" for important differential diagnoses such as cerebral vasculitis. Meanwhile, several studies have demonstrated an increased prevalence of headache in MS compared to the general population. This is due to the heterogeneity of headache genesis with frequent occurrence of both primary and secondary headaches in MS. On the one hand, MS and migraine are often comorbid. On the other hand, secondary headaches occur frequently, especially in the course of MS relapses. These are often migraine-like headaches caused by inflammation, which can improve as a result of MS-specific therapy. Headaches are particularly common in the early stages of chronic inflammatory CNS disease, where inflammatory activity is greatest. In addition, headache can also occur as a side effect of disease-modifying drugs (DMDs). Headache can occur with most DMDs and is most frequently described with interferon-beta therapy. The aim of this work is to present the prevalence of headache and describe the heterogeneity of possible causes of headache in MS. In addition, important therapeutic aspects in the treatment of MS patients in general will be presented as well as different approaches to the treatment of headache in MS depending on the etiological classification.