A leukemia patient who has undergone multiple courses of chemotherapy develops herpes simplex encephalitis. Which of the following would you expect a CT scan of the patient's brain to show?
Herpes simplex can cause a necrotizing, hemorrhagic acute encephalitis that may rapidly produce death. The encephalitis characteristically involves the lower poions of the cerebral coex, notably the temporal lobes and the base of the frontal lobes, possibly because the infection spreads from the oropharynx. Ref: Ropper A.H., Samuels M.A. (2009). Chapter 33. Viral Infections of the Nervous System, Chronic Meningitis, and Prion Diseases. In A.H. Ropper, M.A. Samuels (Eds), Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology, 9e.
Generalized volume loss
Volume loss selectively in the basal ganglia
Volume loss selectively in the brainstem
Volume loss selectively in the temporal and frontal lobes