Acute axonal neuropathy and Wernicke’s encephalopathy

Excerpt

Sirs: Wernicke’s Encephalopathy (WE) and peripheral neuropathy (PN) are common clinical manifestations of alcohol abuse [1, 2]. Typically, WE has an acute, rapidly progressive course whereas alcohol-associated PN is a chronic, slowly progressive disease. However, an acute course of alcohol-associated PN has recently been reported and related to thiamine deficiency which also yields WE [1, 2, 9]. Here, we report a case of an alcoholic patient with simultaneous manifestation of WE and acute axonal PN with severe autonomic dysfunction. The simultaneous manifestation of both conditions together with a low thiamine serum level provides support for a critical role of thiamine deficiency in acute alcohol-associated axonal PN. …