Levetiracetam as alternative treatment in Jeavons syndrome.

We report on a 25 year old female patient who had a diagnosis of Jeavons syndrome since her childhood. Although valproate led to seizure freedom, she developed persistent reproductive endocrine disorders attributed to this drug. The withdrawal of valproate in parallel with an initiation of levetiracetam monotherapy resulted in a maintenance of clinical remission and a resolution of these abnormalities. This case together with relevant literature data supports the view that the use of levetiracetam might be of benefit for female patients with Jeavons syndrome.

Can 'football-team color-code' compensate for anomia? The case study of FN, a patient with color anomia.

A case study is reported on large ischemic infracts involving cortical and subcortical areas of the parietal lobes bilaterally, especially left temporo-parietal and right parietal. On examination, the diagnosis of vascular dementia with color anomia, optic aphasia for colors, was established. The patient (FN) showed great difficulty in understanding a scene as a whole and in describing complex scenes. FN's oral comprehension skills at word and sentence level were satisfactory and he exhibited communicative effectiveness during conversation. He could read letter by letter, but could not make simple judgments of shapes. FN exhibited a marked inability to name colors presented to him visually and to indicate or point to the color requested from the examiner. The most interesting of all the patient's characteristics was the strategy--a football-team color-code--he had developed for compensating for his inability to name colors.

Meningioma growth and interferon beta-1b treated multiple sclerosis: coincidence or relationship?

Although the coincidence of multiple sclerosis (MS) and central nervous system (CNS) tumors has been reported in over 30 cases in English literature, meningioma growth was associated with interferon-beta (INF-b) treated MS only in two of them. We report the case of a 19-year-old woman with clinically possible, laboratory supported MS, and a concomitant right intraventricular tumor with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) characteristics consistent with meningioma (similar signal with grey matter on T1 and T2-weighted images and homogenous, intense enhancement). Two years after initiation of INF-b treatment, follow-up brain MRI revealed enlargement of the intraventricular mass and relative increase in the number of white matter lesions without significant clinical deterioration. She underwent almost total resection of the mass and histology confirmed the diagnosis of papillary meningioma. Based on the immunohistochemistry results, we speculate that INF-b resulted in meningioma growth by enhancing platelet derived growth factor (PDGF) receptors or/and down-regulating transforming growth factor receptors on the tumor itself.