Diagnosis and treatment of metabolic encephalopathy

Encephalopathy is a collection of various brain function disorders.Brain function disorders due to metabolic abnormalities are called metabolic encephalopathy.Various diseases like vitamin metabolic disorder, folinic acid metabolic disorder, urea cycle disorder and mitochondrial disease can result in metabolic encephalopathy.Since quite a number of metabolic encephalopathy can be well controlled after given special diet and supplement of coenzyme, early diagnosis and treatment are of great importance.Epilepsy is the most common manifestation of metabolic encephalopathy.The diagnosis remains a great challenge to clinical physicians as the disease onset can be insidious with complicated pathogenesis.In children with epilepsy, growth and development retardation, mental retardation and multisystem involvement, examination of metabolic disorder like urine organic acid analysis, blood amino acid analysis, blood acylcarnitine analysis, metabolic product analysis of cerebrospinal fluid and genetic diagnosis should be carried out in time. Key words: Inborn error of metabolism; Metabolic encephalopathy; Epilepsy,