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DOI: 10.1055/s-2003-39600
Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart · New York
Occipito-Temporal Polymicrogyria and Subclinical Muscular Dystrophy
Publication History
Received: August 12, 2002
Accepted after Revision: January 20, 2003
Publication Date:
30 May 2003 (online)
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Abstract
We report a two-year-old Caucasian boy who had neonatal seizures and was found to have bilateral occipito-temporal polymicrogyria on neonatal brain MRI. The child had no additional neurological abnormality other than the neonatal seizures, but serum CK was found to be elevated (5 - 7 times normal values) and the muscle biopsy showed evidence of early muscular dystrophy. Detailed protein and genetic studies did not allow the identification of a known form of muscular dystrophy. The boy has been followed regularly and he currently has mild global developmental delay but no clinical signs of muscle involvement. The association of polymicrogyria and muscular dystrophy is known to occur in Fukuyama and Walker Warburg muscular dystrophies, in muscle-eye-brain disease and in some patients with merosin deficient CMD. However the absence of weakness and of eye involvement, the normal expression of merosin and alpha dystroglycan and the pattern of brain involvement make it very unlikely that the child is affected by one of these forms. As the pattern of brain involvement and the muscle pathology is not typical of one of the forms of neuronal migration disorders secondary to a known gene defect, we suspect that the combination of muscle and brain involvement found in this child is not coincidental. Our findings suggest that serum CK should be determined in children with undiagnosed polymicrogyria, even in the absence of weakness. This may lead to an expansion of our understanding of muscle dystrophies and cortical dysplasias.
Key words
Muscular dystrophy - polymicrogyria - brain MRI
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Francesco Muntoni
Department of Paediatrics, Imperial College Hammersmith Hospital
Du Cane Road
London W12 OHN
United Kingdom
Email: f.muntoni@ic.ac.uk