Intracranial inflammatory granuloma caused by toxoplasmosis

Abstract

Toxoplasmosis is a serous parasitic zoonosis caused by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii worldwide. Human beings acquire the disease by eating infected meat containing T. gondii cysts, by ingesting water or vegetables contaminated with oocysts shed in the feces of an infected cat, and by transmission from mother to fetus. Cerebral toxoplasmosis is one of the most serious complications in immunocompromised individuals such as HIV-infected patients, with a high mortality rate, whereas the incidence of cerebral toxoplasmosis is extremely rare in immunocompetent persons. Due to the low incidence and the high rate of misdiagnosis, cerebral toxoplasmosis was occasionally described in sporadic cases. Furthermore, the diagnosis of cerebral toxoplasmosis is rather difficult because the clinical manifestations are non-specific and are not sufficiently characteristic for a definite diagnosis. It mimics several other infectious diseases or primary central nervous system (CNS) tumor. In the present study, we reported an exceedingly rare cerebral toxoplasmosis with obvious space-occupying lesion occurring in the left temporal lobe of an immunocompetent adult patient. To our knowledge, this is the first report of successful treatment of acquired cerebral toxoplasmosis in China.

Keywords:

• Cerebral toxoplasmosis
• Differential diagnosis
• Treatment

Acknowledgements

This study was supported in part by the Natural Scientific Foundation of China (No. U1204807 and No. 81172612).