The fourth case of Veillonella parvula meningoencephalitis diagnosed by stereotactic brain biopsy

Introduction: Veillonella parvula is a small, nonfermentative anaerobic gram-negative coccus. Meningitidis due to V. parvula seen extremely rare. Here we want to report the fourth case with meningoencephalitis due to V. parvula and emphasize the significance of brain biopsy in encephalitis cases with unknown ethiology. Case report: A 64-year-old male admitted to the emergency room with a frontal and bitemporal headache. On physical examination, the patient was concious and oriented, his reaction time was prolonged. There was no focal neurological deficit, fever and meningeal signs. The magnetic resonance imaging scan showed hyperintensity on the T2-FLAR weighted sequences and diffusion restriction at the same place, concordant with encephalitis. On the third day of admission, oromandibular focal motor seizures were observed. Wecould not define any microbiological agent by analysis of cerebrospinal fluid. Stereotactic brain biopsy performed and the bacterial culture of the biopsy material grew V. parvula. Discussion: We reported the fourth V. parvula encephalitis case in the literature. The aim of this case report is to emphasize that brain biopsy should be considered in patients with encephalitis of unknown etiology. © 2014 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.