Cerebral infarct in patients with hemorrhagic shock and encephalopathy syndrome.

The syndrome of hemorrhagic shock and encephalopathy (HSE) was first described by Levin et al. in 1983 but not until recently has it been considered to be a newly identified devastating disorder. The main features of this syndrome consist of sudden onset of shock, coma, convulsions, coagulopathy, renal and hepatic dysfunction. The mortality rate is very high with surviving patients suffering from severe neurologic sequelae. In review of the literature, we did not find any reports of cerebral infarcts. Recently we managed two patients with this syndrome, both of whom had CT scan findings consistent with cerebral infarctions.