Diffuse central nervous system lupus involving white matter, basal ganglia, thalami and brainstem.

We described an 11-year-old girl with acute central nervous system lupus showing diffuse lesions. She developed generalized convulsions followed by prolonged coma, and her psychomotor ability recovered fully after 3 months of steroid therapy. Cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed high signal intensity in the cerebral deep white matter, bilateral basal ganglia, thalami, and brainstem on T2-weighted image. These lesions resolved over 1 month with residual atrophic change in the heads of the caudate nucleus on MRI. Acute SLE leukoencephalopathy may be recognized as a subtype of CNS lupus.