21/105. Idiopathic central pontine myelinolysis in childhood. Central pontine myelinolysis (CPM) is rare in childhood with only a few cases reported in world literature. We report a 7-year-old male who presented with acute ataxia, swallowing difficulties, dysarthria, and radiological features consistent with the disorder. He improved remarkably with oral prednisolone therapy and was almost back to normal by 2 weeks. A review of the literature is also included. ( info) |
22/105. magnetic resonance imaging detection of a lesion compatible with central pontine myelinolysis in a pregnant patient with recurrent vomiting and confusion. The authors report a patient who presented with unexplained confusion. She was 15 weeks pregnant and had been having recurrent vomiting for several weeks. This was felt to possibly represent hyperemesis gravidarum, but she had several other possible contributing factors. Her serum sodium was 146 mmol/L, and her potassium was 2.6 mmol/L. She was alert but had disorientation, visual hallucinations, memory impairment, and confabulation despite being a college graduate with no history of illicit drug use or excessive alcohol consumption. Her initial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scan was interpreted as being normal. However, her follow-up MRI brain scan revealed typical findings of central pontine myelinolysis, which correlated with hyperreflexia and positive Babinski reflexes. This patient illustrates the constellation of signs and symptoms that can be seen with a demyelinating lesion of the pons. In addition, our case illustrates how this MRI scan finding can be quite nonspecific but may help to explain the clinical findings. ( info) |
23/105. Central pontine myelinolysis in a patient with anorexia nervosa. Myelinolysis may occur as a severe complication of eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa (AN). One of the most important reasons can be a rapid correction of hyponatremia caused by tubulopathy, water intoxication (WI), or abuse of diuretics in individuals with AN. METHOD AND RESULTS We report on a 24-year-old female patient with an 8-year history of AN. A rapid correction of severe hyponatremia and hypokalemia induced by WI led to central pontine myelinolysis, which was confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination. Besides affective lability, incoherence, and an acute confusional state, surprisingly, no severe neurological symptoms emerged. CONCLUSION: Thus, physicians should be aware of the risk of pontine myelinolysis with new psychiatric symptoms emerging in the absence of obvious neurological deficits. ( info) |
24/105. diffusion-weighted MR findings of central pontine and extrapontine myelinolysis. diffusion-weighted MR (DWI) can detect changes in water diffusion associated with cellular dysfunction, which enables the differentiation of cytotoxic edema from vasogenic edema. In this study on DWI findings in central pontine (CPM) and extrapontine myelinolysis (EPM), DWI showed high signal intensities in the bilateral pons, midbrain, and genu of the corpus callosum. The corresponding apparent diffusion coefficient values were rather low. This suggests that cytotoxic edema does in fact exist in CPM and EPM and that DWI can be useful in the rapid diagnosis and prediction of the various types of edema occurring in active demyelinating diseases. ( info) |
25/105. Subclinical central pontine myelinolysis following liver transplantation. Central pontine myelinolysis (CPM) is a demyelinating disorder of unknown origin that almost exclusively affects the central portion of the basis pontis, and is one of the fatal neurological complications after liver transplantation. We describe two children with CPM detected incidentally after liver transplantation. To our knowledge, this is the first report of CPM diagnosed antemortem in children who had undergone liver transplantation. In our patients, there were no clinical manifestations associated with CPM. We conclude that, including silent cases such as our patients, CPM may be more prevalent than previously appreciated following liver transplantation. ( info) |
| Central Pontine Myelinolysis (CPM) is a rare neurologic complication after liver transplantation. The true incidence of CPM after orthotopic liver transplantation remains an estimate. However, with the introduction of magnetic resonance imaging, early recognition became feasible. In this report, we present a case of rapid resolution of CPM followed by serial magnetic resonance imaging scans. ( info) |
27/105. Central pontine myelinolysis: sequele of hyponatremia during transcervical resection of endometrium. Transcervical resection of endometrium is an alternative to hysterectomy for women with menorrhagia. The procedure involves the use of cutting loop diathermy to resect the endometrium while the uterine cavity is irrigated with 1.5% glycine which can absorb consequent fluid and electrolyte shifts. Severe hyponatremia leading to central pontine myelinolysis is an extremely rare complication of this procedure. We report a case of a young female undergoing transcervical resection of endometrium for menorrhagia, who developed central pontine myelinolysis but made a complete recovery after three months. ( info) |
28/105. Osmotic myelinolysis in a normonatremic patient. Osmotic demyelination syndrome is usually associated with hyponatremia or rapid correction of this condition. The prognosis is usually fatal. We treated a 34-year-old chronic renal failure patient who did not have hyponatremia but developed severe pontine myelinolysis demonstrated with MRI. Serial MRI revealed gradual reduction of the lesions over 2 months. This case demonstrates that osmotic demyelination syndrome is not always associated with hyponatremia, and that, although the prognosis is usually poor, some patients recover. ( info) |
29/105. Benign course of central pontine myelinolysis in a patient with anorexia nervosa. Central pontine myelinolysis is a rare neurologic disorder defined by symmetric demyelination of the central base of the pons. Until recently its outcome was considered invariably poor if not fatal. We report a 15-year-old female patient with severe anorexia nervosa who acutely developed a locked-in syndrome. magnetic resonance imaging revealed a central pontine lesion. There was no serum sodium abnormality. The corticospinal and corticonuclear tracts were intact, as assessed by serial neurophysiologic studies. Finally, the patient recovered completely both clinically and radiologically. This article discusses these observations in the light of recent reports on similar benign outcomes of central pontine myelinolysis. Although electrolyte imbalances could be overestimated and the clinical significance of the radiologic lesion is uncertain, the functional assessment of the corticospinal and corticonuclear fibers might have prognostic value. ( info) |
30/105. Cerebellar peduncle myelinolysis: case report. We present a case of bilateral middle cerebellar peduncle myelinolysis, in which the diagnosis modality was MRI. ( info) |