Non-contrast Enhancing Group A Streptococcus Subdural Empyema: An Illustrative Case Report of a Potential Radiographic Pitfall
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Subdural empyemas (SDEs) are an uncommon complication of intracranial infection, typically presenting as a hypodense collection with peripheral contrast enhancement. Herein, we report two rare cases of SDE without contrast enhancement, both secondary to group A streptococcus. The first is a 27-year-old previously healthy female, at 27 weeks of gestational age who presented with fever, headache, neurological decline, and blood cultures positive for gram-positive cocci. The second case is a previously healthy 48-year-old male who presented with left-sided otalgia, fever, headache, and precipitous decline in altered mental status and hemiplegia. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in both cases showed a subdural collection without contrast enhancement and without diffusion restriction. Despite appearances similar to subdural effusion, because of a heightened suspicion due to clinical decline, both were taken to surgery for irrigation and debridement which confirmed SDE. Both patients were treated with six weeks of intravenous antibiotics and eventually recovered without neurological deficits. SDEs are uncommon but clinically significant phenomena. These two cases demonstrate that SDEs in rare circumstances may present as non-enhancing subdural collections. Missing the diagnosis of SDE can have significant consequences to patient morbidity and mortality and as such, it not be excluded based on radiographic findings alone.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".