CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Intensive Care Medicine and Anesthesiology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1641133
This article is part of the Research TopicCase Reports in Intensive Care Medicine 2025View all 4 articles
Bilateral globus pallidus lesions at high altitude: a case report
Provisionally accepted
- 1Qinghai University, Xining, China
- 2Affiliated Hospital of Qinghai University, Xining, China
- 3Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences and Sichuan People's Hospital, Chengdu, China
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High-altitude hypoxia can be an important clue to etiology with severe brain structural abnormalities with neuroimaging findings such as bilateral globus pallidus lesions. When patients enter highaltitude areas with a rapid decline in neurological function, they should be monitored for neurological symptoms. In cases where obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is suspected, OSAS-related chronic hypoxia may cause brain function damage, with high-altitude exposure potentially acting as a trigger. Here, we report the case of a 54-year-old man with neuroimaging findings of bilateral globus pallidus lesions and leukoencephalopathy (Fazekas I grade) at high altitude who was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) due to loss of consciousness and muscle weakness. The patient demonstrated improvement with prompt and effective treatment. It is important to emphasize the necessity for gradual ascent to high altitude and understand the timing for treatment.
Keywords: High-altitude illness, hypoxic, globus pallidus lesions, Intensive Care, case report
Received: 04 Jun 2025; Accepted: 23 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Huang, Si, Guo, Shen, Guo, Pan and Gan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Chun Pan, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences and Sichuan People's Hospital, Chengdu, China
Guifen Gan, Affiliated Hospital of Qinghai University, Xining, China
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