Congenital Varicella Syndrome: Case With Isolated Brain Damage

Abstract

We report a case of congenital varicella syndrome after maternal infection during the 10th week of pregnancy. None of the typical abnormalities were manifested at birth; however, the child experienced neonatal tonic convulsions that evolved to refractory focal epilepsy with adversive, complex partial, and secondarily generalized seizures. At the age of 5 years, after a prolonged generalized seizure following cranial trauma, cranial computed tomography (CT) was performed. It led to the misdiagnosis of post-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage. Afterwards, because of persistent seizures and developmental delay with mild or slight intellectual deficit, the next CT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) investigation at 8 years of age disclosed massive malformation of the left cerebral hemisphere. The serologic evidence of varicella-zoster virus-specific IgG antibodies without a history of varicella disease after birth and maternal infection during early pregnancy were crucial to diagnosing the rare syndrome of congenital varicella consisting of isolated brain damage. (J Child Neurol 2001;16:595-597).