Accessible online at: www.karger.com/ene Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. It is characterised pathologically by neuronal loss, spongy changes in the grey matter and an astrocytosis, and clinically by rapidly progressing dementia, pyramidal and extrapyramidal disease with myoclonus and triphasic discharges in the electroencephalogram. This dreaded fat...

L eigh syndrome is a subacute necrotising encephalomyelopathy characterised by delayed onset of symptoms, hypotonia, feeding difficulties, failure to thrive, motor regression, and brain stem signs. The main laboratory findings are raised lactate in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid, but the diagnosis is only confirmed by the presence of bilateral symmetrical lesions in the basal ganglia, thalam...

L eigh syndrome is a subacute necrotising encephalomyelopathy characterised by delayed onset of symptoms, hypotonia, feeding difficulties, failure to thrive, motor regression, and brain stem signs. The main laboratory findings are raised lactate in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid, but the diagnosis is only confirmed by the presence of bilateral symmetrical lesions in the basal ganglia, thalam...

H uman T cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) is a mammalian retrovirus that has a tropism for mature T lymphocytes and an association with rare clinical disorders (1, 2). HTLV-I infection is endemic in a number of geographic regions which include parts of Japan, the Caribbean, South America, and Africa. Despite very high rates of infection in endemic areas where as many as 30% of the popula...