Questions posted in the
Neurology and Neurosurgery Forum have been answered by doctors from The Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
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Subject: Re: Can encephalitis lead in later years to Brain Tumor? I just discovered through a routine eye exam that I have lost a part of my peripheral vision in my right eye. I never noticed this until I was shown the results of a visual field test. Further examination showed that my optic nerve is quite pale. Is it possible or even likely that this was a result of a severe bout of encephalitis that I had when I was 6? (I'm now 33). I don't remember much anymore from that time except that I spent more than two months in the hospital and was really ill. (Later I had to wear glasses because I began to see double.) Am I more at risk for a brain tumor as a result of this illness I had as a child? Have you ever heard of any case of someone losing part of their vision as a result of encephalitis or is it more probable that something else as caused this? Thank you.... It is possible that you lost part of your visual field as a result of encephalitis if the encephalitis damaged part of the visual pathway or the visual cortex where visual information is processed. A pale optic nerve is usually a sequel to inflammation of the nerve at some point, although probably not encephalitis as this aggressive form of inflammation would probably destroy the nerve completely causing blindness in that eye. You may have had a mild asymptomatic optic neuritis at some point. There is absolutely no evidence that suffering encephalitis as a child leads to a higher risk of brain tumor in later life. | |
