Abstract
For those surviving encephalitis, the influence on daily life of patients and their relatives may be substantial. In contrast, the prognosis after aseptic meningitis (ASM) is considered good. In this prospective study in patients with encephalitis (n = 20) and ASM (n = 46), we show that both groups experienced reduced Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) at two months after discharge, and that workability was reduced in 37% of the patients with ASM. However, 12 months after discharge no neuropsychological deficits were detected in the ASM group, whereas patients with encephalitis had lower scores on tests of fine motor and psychomotor skills as well as on learning and memory. We also found that for patients with encephalitis, neopterin, as a marker of Th1 cell induced macrophage activation, and a putatively neurotoxic ratio of the kynurenine pathway (KP) measured during the acute phase was associated with lower HRQoL. Our data show that not only encephalitis, but also ASM has substantial short-term influence on HRQoL and workability. For patients with encephalitis we suggest a link between immune activation and activation of the KP during the acute phase with impaired HRQoL.
Highlights
For those surviving encephalitis, the influence on daily life of patients and their relatives may be substantial
We evaluated short- and long-term outcome, workability, Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) and neuropsychological functioning in patients with encephalitis and aseptic meningitis (ASM) of various and unknown etiology
Our main findings were 1) encephalitis and ASM patients have low short-term HRQoL scores compared to the normal population and displayed reduced workability, with more pronounced reductions in encephalitis, 2) in encephalitis, HRQoL as reflected by Mental component summary (MCS), correlated with a putative neurotoxic imbalance of the kynurenine pathway (KP), and 3) encephalitis displayed more long-term neurocognitive deficits
Summary
The influence on daily life of patients and their relatives may be substantial. The prognosis after aseptic meningitis (ASM) is considered good In this prospective study in patients with encephalitis (n = 20) and ASM (n = 46), we show that both groups experienced reduced Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) at two months after discharge, and that workability was reduced in 37% of the patients with ASM. We found that for patients with encephalitis, neopterin, as a marker of Th1 cell induced macrophage activation, and a putatively neurotoxic ratio of the kynurenine pathway (KP) measured during the acute phase was associated with lower HRQoL. Data concerning outcome and disability after ASM vary from no complains, to reduced Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL), fatigue, and reduced cognitive function[8,9,10,11,12]. For patients with encephalitis we found that neopterin, as a marker of interferon (IFN)-γ activity, correlated with the rate-limiting step of the KP (i.e. indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO)) and with a putative neurotoxic ratio of the KP
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