Prognoses of acute encephalopathy

We investigated the prognoses of 103 children with acute encephalopathy at more than one year from the onset. The patients were divided into five groups according to the clinical courses during the acute stage;group 1:1 case with metabolic disorder, group, 2:24 with cytokine storms, group, 3:68 with prolonged convulsion more than 30 minutes, group, 4:5 with severe refractory status epilepticus, and group, 5:5 with the main symptom of impaired consciousness. We checked the past histories, etiologies, severities of consciousness loss, complications and disabilities including higher cortical dysfunction in their medical charts. The average age of onset in all cases was 3 years, with the highest age of 6 years 5 months in group 4. Regarding the past histories, febrile seizures, asthma and theophylline medication were prominent though they were not significantly different. Regarding etiologies, influenza infection, 36 cases, and HHV-6 infection, 7 cases, were prominent though they were not significantly different. Complicating disabilities comprised mental retardation, 89.3%, higher cortical dysfunction, 77.7%, epilepsies, 68.9%, and motor disturbance, 27.2%. The severity of disabilities increased in the order of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Attention deficit and visiospacial disturbance were the main symptoms of higher cortical dysfunction.