A pediatric case of acute flaccid myelitis with enterovirus D68 detected in the cerebrospinal fluid

Abstract

Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) is a recently defined clinical disease of acute flaccid paralysis with spinal cord gray matter lesions on MRI. Although enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) has been strongly suspected to be an etiological agent of AFM, EV-D68 is detected mainly from respiratory specimens. Since EV-D68 has been rarely detected in cerebrospinal fluid samples, it remains unclear whether EV-D68 is a major cause of AFM. We experienced a pediatric case of acute flaccid myelitis with enterovirus D68 detected in the cerebrospinal fluid. It is suggested that the direct invasion of EV-D68 into the spinal cord could be a pathomechanism of AFM.