A rare case of pituitrin-induced delayed encephalopathy

A 26-year-old girl was admitted to the Neurological Department of The First Teaching Hospital of Jilin University with complaints of rapidly deteriorating speech clumsiness for 18 days. Five Days before her attack she had undergone intramuscular pituitrin therapy on account of recurrent haemoptysis. Cranial MRI revealed multiple abnormal signals in bilateral hemisphere and symmetric abnormal signal in bilateral caudate nucleus and putamen. Serum electrolyte analysis revealed mild hyponatremia. The abnormal signals in bilateral hemisphere almost disappeared after 7 days of cerebral circulation ameliorating and serum electrolyte turbulence correcting therapy, whereas the symmetric abnormal signals in bilateral caudate nucleus and putamen still existed. A diagnosis of delayed encephalopathy was made and we presume the encephalopathy was associated with pituitrin therapy.