Prognostic implications of myoclonic jerk in children with enterovirus infection

Hsiao-Kuo Lu¹, Tzou-Yien Lin¹, Shao-Hsuan Hsia², Cheng-Hsun Chiu¹, Yhu-Chering Huang¹, Kuo-Chien Tsao³, Luan-Yin Chang⁴
Divisions of ¹Infectious Diseases and ²Pediatric Critical Care and Emergency Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Chang Gung Childrens Hospital, Taoyuan; ³Department of Clinical Pathology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan; and ⁴Department of Pediatrics, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

Received: March 3, 2003 Revised: August 6, 2003 Accepted: September 3, 2003

Corresponding author: Dr. Luan-Yin Chang, Department of Pediatrics, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, No. 7 Chung-Shan South Road, Taipei, Taiwan 100, ROC. E-mail:

To determine the prognostic value of myoclonic jerk in children with enterovirus 71 (EV71) infection, a retrospective study was conducted on 665 enterovirus culture-confirmed patients admitted to Chang Gung Childrens Hospital from January 2000 to September 2001. The mean age was 35.0 months 32.2 months, ranging from 1 day to 15 years and 416 (62.6%) of them were male. Among these patients, 140 (21.1%) had EV71 isolated, and 150 (22.6%) had myoclonic jerk. Fifty one percent (72/140) of EV71 cases and only 15% (78/525) of non-EV71 cases had myoclonic jerk (p

Key words: Enterovirus, myoclonic jerk, prognosis, risk factors

J Microbiol Immunol Infect 2004;37:82-87.