This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal

Clinical and Pathologic Study of 21 Cases

Gabriel Toro, MD; Ignacio Vergara, MD; Gustavo Romén, MD

Arch Neurol. 1977;34(11):694-700.

Abstract
• Twenty-one cases of neuroparalytic accidents of rabies vaccination (with suckling mouse brain vaccine), 11 of them fatal, were observed, occurring predominantly in men; the mean age of the patients was 29 years. On the average, 13 doses of the vaccine were used. Only three patients received less than seven doses. The mean latent period was 14 days (range, 4 to 24 days).

In 16 patients (76%), a Guillain-Barré syndrome occurred that was moderate in three, severe in seven, and fatal in six. Pathologically, this was shown to be a typical polyradiculoneuritis. Five patients had fatal involvement of the central nervous system. Three had an acute disseminated perivenous leukoencephalopathy, with concurrent rabies encephalitis in one case. One patient had a perivenous myeloradiculopathy and one a chronic encephalomyelopathy of six years' duration with demyelinating plaques in the periventricular white matter, cerebellum, and spinal cord.

Since the reduction of postexposure rabies vaccination to seven doses, no new cases have been observed in Colombia.

Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Pathology (Neuropathology) (Dr Toro) and Neurology (Dr Vergara), National University of Colombia School of Medicine, and the National Institute of Health of Colombia (Drs Toro and Román), Bogotá. Dr Román is now with the Department of Neurology, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication June 14, 1977.

Read in part before the First International and Third National Seminar on Rabies, Cali, Colombia, September 1974.

Reprint requests to Instituto Nacional de Salud de Colombia, Apartado Aereo 80334, Bogotá, Colombia (Dr Toro).

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Guillain Barre syndrome
Winer
Mol. Pathol. 2001;54:381-385.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

"Can't you use another vaccine"? postrabies vaccination encephalitis
CHAU et al.
J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry 1999;67:555-556.
FULL TEXT  

Fatal Rabies Associated With Extensive Demyelination
Nelson and Berry
Arch Neurol 1993;50:317-323.
ABSTRACT  

Retrovirus-Associated Myelopathies
Roman
Arch Neurol 1987;44:659-663.
ABSTRACT  

Relapsing Central and Peripheral Demyelinating Diseases: Unusual Pathologic Features
de la Monte et al.
Arch Neurol 1986;43:626-629.
ABSTRACT  

Cerebral Malaria: A Disseminated Vasculomyelinopathy
Toro and Roman
Arch Neurol 1978;35:271-275.
ABSTRACT  

Recurrent Disseminated Vasculomyelinopathy
Poser et al.
Arch Neurol 1978;35:166-170.
ABSTRACT