title: Abdominal-wall postherpetic pseudohernia.
abstract: Herpes zoster affects 10-20% of the general population. Motor complications sometimes occur in the segments corresponding to the involved sensory dermatomes causing abdominal wall pseudohernias. We present a case of a 57-year-old woman with herpes zoster characteristical rash following T11-T12 right dermatomes. Ten days after dermatologic manifestations onset, she had developed a protrusion at the abdominal wall on the right flank. The electroneuromyography confirmed axonal motor commitment, and morphological defects were ruled out by ultrasonography. The bulge totally disappeared after 4 months of observation. Postherpetic pseudohernia must be suspected when a patient develops signs and symptoms of motor dysfunction that coincide with or follow a herpes zoster eruption resulting in abdominal-wall herniation. A review of the literature concerning these extremely exceptional sequelae of herpes zoster is presented.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Escola Bahiana de Medicina e Saúde Pública, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. pedroebm@gmail.com
authors.forename: Pedro Dantas
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.forename: Paulo Vicente
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: dos Santos Filho
authors.forename: João Eduardo Marques Tavares
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: de Menezes Ettinger
authors.forename: Isabel Cristina Dantas
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Oliveira
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D046449:Hernia, Abdominal / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006562:Herpes Zoster / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged