title: Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome in intensive care medicine.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is a well-recognized clinico-neuroradiological transient condition. Early recognition is of paramount importance for prompt control of blood pressure or removal of precipitating factors and treatment of epileptic seizures or status epilepticus. Delay in the diagnosis and treatment may in fact results in death or in irreversible neurological sequelae.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  PRES is characterized by headache, altered mental status, seizures, and visual disturbances and is associated with a number of different causes, most commonly acute hypertension, preeclampsia/eclampsia, and immunosuppressive agents. Clinical symptoms and neuroradiological findings are typically indistinguishable among the cases of PRES, regardless of underlying cause. Magnetic resonance studies typically show edema involving the white matter of cerebral posterior regions, especially parieto-occipital lobes but frontal and temporal lobes, and other encephalic structures may be involved.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Intensivists and other physicians involved in the evaluation of patients with presumed PRES must be aware of the clinical spectrum of the associated conditions, the diagnostic modalities, and the correct treatment.
authors.affiliation: Medical Intensive Care Unit, Department of Surgical and Anesthesiological Sciences, Naples, Italy. servillo@unina.it
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Servillo
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bifulco
authors.forename: Edoardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: De Robertis
authors.forename: Ornella
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Piazza
authors.forename: Pasquale
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Striano
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tortora
authors.forename: Salvatore
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Striano
authors.forename: Rosalba
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tufano
mesh_terms: D001794:Blood Pressure; D003422:Critical Care; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D020343:Hypertensive Encephalopathy / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D013226:Status Epilepticus / Q000188:drug therapy