subacute sclerosing panencephalitis n a usu. fatal neurological disease of children and young adults that is caused by infection of the brain by a previously latent morbillivirus causing measles and that is marked esp. by behavioral changes, myoclonic seizures, progressive deterioration of motor and mental functioning, and coma abbr. SSPE
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(SSPE) a rare and devastating form of leukoencephalitis usually affecting children and adolescents. Insidious in onset, it characteristically produces progressive cerebral dysfunction over several weeks or months and death within a year. There is also demyelination with intranuclear inclusion bodies in nerve cells and oligodendroglia. High titers of measles virus in the serum and cerebrospinal fluid have indicated a linkage between this condition and earlier measles infection. Called also Dawson encephalitis, subacute inclusion body encephalitis, subacute sclerosing leukoencephalopathy, van Bogaert encephalitis, and van Bogaert sclerosing leukoencephalitis.Medical dictionary. 2011.