Childhood Scurvy: A Nearly Extinct Disease Posing a New Diagnostic Challenge, a Case Report

Abstract

Scurvy is seldom encountered in modern day clinical practice. Children can present with nonspecific features which can mimic several other common conditions. We describe here a four-year-old child who presented with severe pain and weakness of bilateral lower limbs and found to be severely malnourished. The diagnosis of scurvy was suspected in the context of underlying malnutrition after excluding other ominous pathologies. Pathognomic radiological changes clinched the diagnosis, and the best supportive evidence was the dramatic response to vitamin C supplementation.

Keywords: children; malnutrition; pseudo-paralysis; scurvy; vitamin C; weakness.