Wernicke’s Encephalopathy in a Child with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

摘要

We read with great interest the article “A rare complicationdeveloping after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation:Wernicke’s encephalopathy” by Solmaz et al. [1]. Wernicke’sencephalopathy (WE) is an acute syndrome requiring emergenttreatment to prevent death and neurologic morbidity [2]. Whilemost often associated with alcoholism, WE also occurs in the settingof prolonged intravenous feeding without adequate thiaminesupplementation, prolonged starvation or unbalanced nutrition,gastrointestinal surgery, systemic malignancy, and transplantation[3]. The classic triad of WE includes encephalopathy, oculomotordysfunction, and gait ataxia. In their article, Solmaz et al. reporteda patient who developed WE following hematopoietic stem celltransplantation (HSCT) and they concluded that this was due toprolonged total parental supplementation and lack of thiaminesupplementation. The only other suggested cause was theuse of busulfan in the conditioning regimen. In the literaturethere is a link of WE to HSCT, malignancies, or chemotherapies.Here we report a new patient who developed WE during acutelymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treatment.