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Prognosis

Authoring team

12% of patient with acute encephalitis in England die from the illness (1) and many are left with residual physical or neuropsychological deficits which require long-term multidisciplinary management (2).

Untreated herpes simplex encephalitis is is progressive and often fatal within 7-14 days with a 70% mortality rate in untreated patients. The poorest prognosis for viral encephalitis occurs in patients with herpes simplex encephalitis and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (3).

References:

  1. Singh TD, Fugate JE, Rabinstein AA. The spectrum of acute encephalitis: causes, management, and predictors of outcome. Neurology. 2015 Jan 27;84(4):359-66.
  2. Ellul M, Solomon T. Acute encephalitis - diagnosis and management. Clin Med (Lond). 2018 Mar;18(2):155-159.
  3. Sabah M, Mulcahy J, Zeman A. Herpes simplex encephalitis. BMJ. 2012 Jun 6;344:e3166

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