Meningovascular neurosyphilis: a report of stroke in a young adult

Antanas Vaitkus¹, Eglė Krasauskaitė², Inga Urbonavičiūtė²

¹Department of Neurology, Kaunas University of Medicine, ²Kaunas University of Medicine, Lithuania

Key words: neurosyphilis; stroke; young adult.

Summary. A young adult patient with meningovascular neurosyphilis in the form of acute ischemic stroke with right hemiparesis and speech disturbance is reported. CT scan showed features of ischemic infarct and extensive laboratory studies were made before the diagnosis ultimately was revealed. Such cases could result in confusion for the clinician, and high index of clinical suspicion of this condition is required since syphilis is not routinely tested, as routine screening is seen to be of low diagnostic yield. As clinical practice indicates, it remains a difficult problem approaching diagnosis of neurosyphilis, and this is achieved through exclusion of neurosyphilis as a clinical possibility.

Correspondence to A. Vaitkus, Department of Neurology, Kaunas University of Medicine, Eivenių 2, 50009 Kaunas, Lithuania. E-mail: antanas.vaitkus@kmuk.lt

Received 4 September 2008, accepted 6 April 2010