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TUESDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDayNews) -- West Nile virus may be especially harmful to organ transplant recipients, placing them at high risk for severe neurological illness, according to a study in the August issue of the Archives of Neurology.

Researchers at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center studied 11 transplant recipients (four kidney, two stem cell, two liver, one lung and two kidney/pancreas) hospitalized with West Nile virus encephalitis. The patients had received their new organs five months to 15 years before they were infected with the virus.

Transplant patients have to take drugs that suppress their immune system, which puts them at greater risk for infections.

All but one of the infected organ recipients had the usual early symptoms of West Nile virus seen in people with normal immune systems. Ten patients developed inflammation of the brain and membrane surrounding the brain and spinal cord (meningoencephalitis) and three of those ten developed paralysis associated with loss of muscle tone (flaccid paralysis).

One patient developed acute flaccid paralysis without encephalitis. Six of the patients suffered major movement disorders, including tremors.

Seven of eight patients who were checked with magnetic resonance imaging had brain abnormalities. Nine of the 11 patients in the study survived their West Nile infections, but three of the survivors experienced significant problems caused by their infections.

While organ recipients with West Nile encephalitis show features of the disease common to individuals with normal immune systems, investigations using brain imaging and other techniques "verify that these patients develop neurological damage at the severe end of the spectrum," the study authors wrote.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about West Nile virus.

(SOURCE: JAMA/Archives journals, news release, Aug. 16, 2004)

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