MRI of Enterovirus 71 myelitis with monoplegia

Abstract

We report two boys diagnosed as having herpangina and hand-foot-mouth disease complicated by monoplegia during the outbreak enterovirus infection in Taiwan in 1998. Enterovirus 71 was identified in the stool and throat swab; neither polio nor Coxsackie viruses was identified. MRI showed unilateral lesions in the anterior horns of the spinal cord at T11–12 and C2–5. Although the MRI findings and sites of these lesions were similar to those of poliovirus-associated poliomyelitis, the virological data indicated that these boys were infected with enterovirus type 71.