A case of Hallervorden-Spatz disease: progressive and intractable dystonia controlled by bilateral thalamotomy.

We present a 10-year-old girl with Hallervorden-Spatz disease diagnosed clinically from the neurological manifestations and the characteristic MRI findings. Her main symptom, dystonia, was progressive and resistant to medication, but this dystonia was controlled by bilateral thalamotomy. No clinical progression of the symptoms was recognized at 21 months from the last operation.