Severity of brain defects in Brazilian Zika babies baffles expert

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Severity of brain defects in Brazilian Zika babies baffles experts

February 8, 2016 - 2:45AM
Bill Berkrot and Anthony Boadle

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"The condition that I've been able to review, very preliminarily, is more severe than simple microcephaly."

Dr Dobyns has spent 30 years researching and treating microcephaly...The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has sought out his expertise to help understand the unfolding epidemic.

"These children have a very severe form of microcephaly," Dr Dobyns said.

"The brain is not just small, it's small with malformations of the cerebral cortex and calcifications. It has the appearance of a very severe, destructive injury to the brain."

Particularly alarming, Dr Dobyns said, is the presence in the Brazilian cases of excess spinal fluid between the brain and skull of the babies.

"If the brain is growing and then suddenly shrinks, then you'll see fluid between the brain and skull," he said. "It has a pattern that suggests that the brain has actually decreased in size."
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"We need to get the message out that this is real, and coming, without getting everybody to panic," Dr Dobyns said. "There will be a steep curve of new information coming in."
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http://www.smh.com.au/world/severit...a-babies-baffles-experts-20160207-gmnyjp.html

 

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Seattle expert: Brain damage is unusually severe in Zika cases

Originally published February 5, 2016 at 11:03 am Updated February 5, 2016 at 9:39 pm
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?They have clear evidence of destruction of the brain,? said Dobyns. ?It has been called ?microcephaly? in quotes, but it?s clear that it?s far more than that.?

Dobyns said he has reviewed a half-dozen brain scans from children in Brazil after receiving them from colleagues there. Though it?s a small sample, he said there are dismaying similarities in the images.

?I?m seeing an extremely rare, recognizable pattern,? he said.

Babies affected by the condition are showing signs that go beyond a general definition of microcephaly, which is a clinical finding of a smaller-than-normal head size...

The brain scans Dobyns examined showed the heads of these babies are ?way small, way small,? he said. The affected infants have severe cerebral palsy and epilepsy evident from birth and significant feeding problems.
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Dobyns said he has asked Brazilian colleagues to pull together and share more case reports and brain scans from affected children.
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?This is a severe and complex form of microcephaly with significant brain damage,? he said. ?What we don?t know is what percentage of affected children have this condition.?

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...-zika-scare-brain-damage-is-unusually-severe/

 

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Seattle doctor says Zika is worse than first thought

Jake Whittenberg, KING 5 News 8:02 a.m. PST March 1, 2016

Seattle doctor William B. Dobyns is becoming an international resource on the Zika virus and he believes it is more severe than first thought.
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He has studied the brain scans of 15 children in Brazil who are stricken with Zika. He says the cases are some of the worst cases of of microcephaly that he has seen in 30 years.
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"Suddenly I'm seeing it again and again and again," Dobyns said. "I speak with doctors in Brazil frequently. The last time I spoke with them, they had seen three cases of Zika just in that day."
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"Should you be pregnant and planning vacation, or you are in Central or South America, you need to think twice," he said.

http://www.king5.com/story/news/hea...octor-zika-worse-than-first-thought/81147796/

 

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Brain scans show full horror of Zika defects, Seattle expert says

Originally published April 20, 2016 at 6:00 am Updated April 20, 2016 at 9:42 am
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Dr. William Dobyns, who works at Seattle Children?s Research Institute, explains brain scans of babies infected with Zika virus in Brazil, highlighting evidence of severe brain destruction. (Bettina Hansen & Katie G. Cotterill / The Seattle Times)
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By Seattle Times health reporter

Zika virus infections are causing birth defects so severe that the babies? brains shrink and their skulls collapse inside the womb, according to a Seattle expert who is monitoring the epidemic sweeping across Latin America and the Caribbean ? and approaching the U.S. mainland.

At least half of 40 brain scans from Brazil that Dr. William Dobyns has examined meet criteria for a rare condition known as fetal brain disruption sequence, a previously rare and highly destructive condition, according to the Seattle Children?s hospital medical geneticist and pediatric neurologist.

?The brain in a fetus is growing and growing and growing,? he explained. ?Then something really bad happens. The brain shrinks and the skull collapses.?

It?s a condition much more severe than the microcephaly linked to Zika early on, a disorder in which babies are born with smaller-than-normal heads, Dobyns said. The growing cases are more evidence that the largely mosquito-borne virus leads to far more devastating defects than originally thought.

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Full text & video:
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...l-horror-of-zika-defects-seattle-expert-says/