Toddler's rare brain-amoeba case highlights need for earlier infectious testing
A Seattle Children’s Hospital team describes a healthy Washington toddler who was misdiagnosed with vasculitis and given immunosuppressants, delaying the diagnosis of the rare brain amoeba Balamuthia mandrillaris for 30 days; by that time the brain was severely damaged, and the child died. The case urges doctors to consider B. mandrillaris in atypical vasculitis and to use CSF infectious testing, including metagenomic sequencing, before immunosuppression.