Central sleep apnea in a patient with dengue encephalitis

We report for the first time a case of Central sleep apnea in a patient with dengue encephalopathy. This is a case report of a 50 year old male who had presented with fever, body ache, headache and altered mental status. A diagnosis of dengue fever was made on the basis of IgM antibodies in serum and encephalopathy was attributed to dengue encephalitis in the absence of another etiological cause of encephalopathy. Persistent hyper somnolence and desaturation despite resolution of fever led to a polysomnographic evaluation, which revealed significant central sleep apnea. Hypersomnia, a primary complaint of excessive sleepiness is frequently seen in neurological conditions like neurodegenerative and genetic disorders, stroke, head trauma, encephalitis, and brain tumors. Some encephalitis such as bulbar poliomyelitis, Western equine encephalitis, listeria monocytogenes brainstem encephalitis, and paraneoplastic brainstem encephalitis & Japanese encephalitis have been reported to cause central apnea. This is the first reported case of Central sleep apnea associated with Dengue infection.