Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
A previously healthy 27-year-old male professional singer presented with a 1-month history of difficulty in singing, fever and night sweats. He had been given a 1-week course of oral corticosteroids and antibiotics for a presumed diagnosis of acute laryngitis, with some clinical improvement.
Six weeks later, he presented again with diplopia, difficulty in swallowing and prominent dysphonia. There was no headache, epistaxis or nasal symptoms.
Neurological examination showed left-sided VI, IX and X cranial nerve palsies.
His erythrocyte sedimentation rate was 72 mm/1st h (<15) and serum C reactive protein was 46.2 mg/l (<10).
HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and trepenomal serology were negative.
Initial immunological screen for anti-nuclear and anti-centromere antibodies was negative. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) examination was normal and viral PCR negative. MRI brain showed asymmetrical pachymeningeal enhancement and inflammatory change in the left mastoid and petrous temporal bones, extending into the left middle ear (figure 1A).
(A) T1-weighted axial magnetic resonance image of the brain showing asymmetric pachymeningeal enhancement with inflammatory change in the left mastoid and petrous bones extending to the left middle ear cavity. (B) Magnetic resonance venography demonstrating absent flow within the left transverse …
Footnotes
-
Contributors AMI: involved in all aspects of patient care from initial admission and drafted original and revised manuscript. DB: involved in patient care and helped with manuscript. MR: involved in patient care and helped with manuscript. BS: senior clinician in charge of patient care, corrected manuscript and suggested revisions.
-
Funding None.
-
Competing interests None.
-
Patient consent Obtained.
-
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned. Externally peer reviewed. This paper was reviewed by Peter Enevoldson, Liverpool, UK.
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- A case of multiple cranial nerve palsies
- A mistaken identity: rhabdomyosarcoma of the middle ear cleft misdiagnosed as chronic suppurative otitis media with temporal lobe abscess
- Herpes zoster oticus with meningitis masquerading as malignant otitis externa
- A case of idiopathic hypertrophic cranial pachymeningitis presenting high values of matrix metalloproteinase
- Chronic and recurrent meningitis
- Widespread cranial nerve palsies while on cyclophosphamide therapy: a very rare manifestation of Wegener's granulomatosis (granulomatosis with polyangitis)
- Headache as the only neurological sign of cerebral venous thrombosis: a series of 17 cases
- Syndromes of the orbital fissure, cavernous sinus, cerebello- pontine angle, and skull base
- Neuro-ophthalmological manifestations of Behçet’s disease
- Non-puerperal uterine inversion in a patient with intracranial sigmoid sinus thrombosis and facial palsy