Morphological features in juvenile Huntington disease associated with cerebellar atrophy - magnetic resonance imaging morphometric analysis.

BACKGROUND: The imaging features of Huntington disease are well known in adults, unlike in juvenile-onset Huntington disease. OBJECTIVE: To conduct a morphometric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analysis in three juvenile Huntington disease patients (ages 2, 4 and 6 years old) to determine whether quantitative cerebral and cerebellar morphological metrics may provide diagnostically interesting patterns of cerebellar and cerebellar atrophy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We report the cases of three siblings with extremely early presentations of juvenile Huntington disease associated with dramatic expansions of the morbid paternal allele from 43 to more than 100 CAG trinucleotide repeats. Automatic segmentation of MRI images of the cerebrum and cerebellum was performed and volumes of cerebral substructures and cerebellar lobules of juvenile Huntington disease patients were compared to those of 30 normal gender- and age-matched controls. Juvenile Huntington disease segmented volumes were compared to those of age-matched controls by using a z-score. RESULTS: Three cerebral substructures (caudate nucleus, putamen and globus pallidus) demonstrated a reduction in size of more than three standard deviations from the normal mean although it was not salient in one of them at clinical reading and was not diagnosed. The size of cerebellum lobules, cerebellum grey matter and cerebellum cortex was reduced by more than two standard deviations in the three patients. The cerebellar atrophy was predominant in the posterior lobe. CONCLUSION: Our study sheds light on atrophic cerebral and cerebellar structures in juvenile Huntington disease. Automatic segmentations of the cerebellum provide patterns that may be of diagnostic interest in this disease.

Life-Threatening Pneumopathy and U urealyticum in a STAT3-Deficient Hyper-IgE Syndrome Patient.

A deficiency in signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is responsible for autosomal dominant hyperimmunoglobulin E syndrome, an immunodeficiency syndrome causing Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumonia, Haemophilus influenzae, and, rarely, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Aspergillus sp infections. Currently, intracellular pathogens are not targeted in the management of severe infections. The pathophysiologic mechanism of hyperimmunoglobulin E syndrome immunodeficiency has recently been linked to a disorder in the T helper 17 pathway and disruption of the interleukin -23/interleukin-17 axis. We report an unusual case of severe pleuropneumopathy by Ureaplasma urealyticum in a teenage girl with STAT3-deficient hyperimmunoglobulin E syndrome (STAT3 HIES). A previous case of severe lung infection by Mycoplasma pneumoniae has already been described in a STAT3-deficient patient, but U urealyticum has never been reported in patients with STAT3 HIES. After a review of the literature, it seems that the specific immunodeficiency pathway of STAT3 HIES exposes STAT3 HIES patients to Ureaplasma lung infections because the pathophysiology of STAT3 HIES and Ureaplasma is based on STAT3 and T helper 17 cells.