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?
High-Yield Explanation
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.