Purpose: Wernicke’s encephalopathy (WE) is a severe neurological disorder caused by thiamine deficiency. The most common cause of WE is alcoholism. However, there is a significant paucity of information in the existing literature relating to nonalcoholic WE. In this study, we investigated the clinical characteristics and neuroimaging findings of nine patients with nonalcoholic WE.
Patients and methods: We retrospectively collated clinical data from nine patients who had been diagnosed with WE in accordance with established criteria including age, gender, risk factors and clinical manifestations. We also collated initial hematological and neuroimaging findings.
Results: The mean age of the nine patients was 54.0±17.1 years; four of these patients (44.4%) were male. All nine patients had a history of fasting (range, 5–47 days) prior to WE. Four of the nine patients (44.4%) exhibited the classical triad, and eight (88.9%) showed alterations in mental status. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans showed that all nine patients had symmetric lesions of the medial thalamus. MRI also revealed other WE-related lesions in mammillary bodies (22.2%), the periaqueductal region (55.6%), the tectal plate of the midbrain (77.8%), cranial nerve nuclei (77.8%) and in the symmetric subcortical white matter (11.1%).
Conclusion: Our analysis showed that fasting is a common cause of WE in nonalcoholic patients and that MRI is a useful tool for the diagnosis of WE. The most common MRI findings were symmetrical lesions of the medial thalamus lesions, followed by the tectal plate of the midbrain and cranial nerve nuclei.
Keywords: Wernicke’s encephalopathy, altered mental status, magnetic resonance imaging, fasting, thiamine, alcoholism