Systematic review highlights differential diagnosis of acute ataxia in children, suggesting common etiologies including drug intoxication and neoplasm.
Acute ataxia is a pediatric condition associated with a plethora of etiologies. This systematic review with meta-analysis was undertaken to provide a hierarchal approach to the differential diagnosis of acute ataxia in the pediatric population. Eleven studies, consisting of 1167 children, met inclusion criteria of 10 or more patients, multiple etiologies of ataxia, and diagnostic data including number of patients with each condition. Extracted data were summarized and expected values (EVs) and 95% credible intervals for each disease entity were estimated using a Bayesian methodology. Postinfectious cerebellitis (EV, 38.0%; 95% CredI, 35.3-40.8%), drug intoxication/poisoning (EV, 14.1%; 95% CredI, 12.1-16.1%), central nervous system infection or inflammation (EV, 8.1%; 95% CredI, 6.6-9.8%), neoplasm (EV 7.3%; 95% CredI, 5.9-8.8%), and peripheral neuropathies including Guillain-Barré syndrome (EV, 6.6%; 95% CredI, 5.3-8.1) occurred most commonly and accounted for 74.1% of cases.
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Jones et al. (2025) studied this question.
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