Skip to main content
Genitourinary Medicine logoLink to Genitourinary Medicine
. 1989 Jun;65(3):189–191. doi: 10.1136/sti.65.3.189

Meningovascular syphilis of the spinal cord presenting with incomplete Brown-Séquard syndrome: case report.

P M Terry 1, G R Glancy 1, A Graham 1
PMCID: PMC1194330  PMID: 2759607

Abstract

A man aged 31 presented to hospital with acute onset of weakness in the legs, sensory loss, and disturbance of bladder and bowel function. Incomplete Brown-Séquard syndrome secondary to meningovascular syphilis of the spinal cord was diagnosed after serological tests for syphilis gave positive results. His condition was probably caused by endarteritis of the arteria radicularis magna of Adamkiewicz. He was treated with procaine penicillin 1.8 MIU intramuscularly once a day and probenecid 0.5 g by mouth three times a day for 21 days followed by physiotherapy and rehabilitation. Considerable neurological recovery was expected. To our knowledge this association has not been reported previously in detail in an English publication.

Full text

PDF
189

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Garland H., Greenberg J., Harriman D. G. Infarction of the spinal cord. Brain. 1966 Dec;89(4):645–662. doi: 10.1093/brain/89.4.645. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Hotson J. R. Modern neurosyphilis: a partially treated chronic meningitis. West J Med. 1981 Sep;135(3):191–200. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Johns D. R., Tierney M., Felsenstein D. Alteration in the natural history of neurosyphilis by concurrent infection with the human immunodeficiency virus. N Engl J Med. 1987 Jun 18;316(25):1569–1572. doi: 10.1056/NEJM198706183162503. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Silver J. R., Buxton P. H. Spinal stroke. Brain. 1974 Sep;97(3):539–550. doi: 10.1093/brain/97.1.539. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Genitourinary Medicine are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES