Evidence Hub

Stroke thrombolysis in tuberculous meningitis

Chan PE, Saha A, Saunders T, Yiin GS

BMJ case reports, 2025

Abstract

A woman in her 30s presented with sudden onset right-sided weakness, speech difficulties and transient loss of consciousness. She had a medical history of migraine, hypothyroidism and cervical lymphadenopathy. On examination, her National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score was 8 due to dense right-sided hemiparesis. CT brain imaging showed no intracranial haemorrhage but revealed incidental findings of left supraclavicular and cervical lymphadenopathy. CT intracranial angiogram did not show large vessel occlusion. She received thrombolytic treatment for ischaemic stroke. NIHSS improved to 3 with no immediate complications. Following admission, she developed swinging fever, seizures and fluctuating right-sided weakness. Repeat MRI of the head showed leptomeningeal enhancement. Biopsy of the cervical lymph nodes showed histiocytic granulomatous lymphadenitis, which was suggestive of tuberculous meningitis (TBM). She was treated with quadruple antimicrobial therapy and steroids for TBM, as well as aspirin for ischaemic stroke, which resulted in good clinical improvement.

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a case report, done in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free