[Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus associated with anti-phospholipid syndrome, showing massive intracranial calcifications].
We report a 46-year-old woman who extensively showed intracranial calcifications possibly due to neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE) and antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). She had been treated with oral prednisolone for SLE since age 15, and experienced two abortions due to APS at ages 28 and 35 respectively. After a convulsion attack due to NPSLE at age 30, she had been suffering from dysarthria and choreic movement in her extremities. On admission to our hospital brain CT demonstrated extensive and symmetrical calcifications bilaterally in basal ganglia, subcortical white matter of the frontal lobe and dentate nuclei. She was shown to have neither metabolic nor congenital disorders causing these intracranial abnormalities. In this patient both NPSLE and APS, therefore, might have contributed to the remarkable intracranial calcifications in a long clinical course.
Shimojima
Yasuhiro
Y
Third Department of Medicine, Shinshu University School of Medicine, Japan.
Gono
Takahisa
T
Hoshi
Kenichi
K
Yamamoto
Kanji
K
Yoshida
Kunihiro
K
Matsuda
Masayuki
M
Ikeda
Shu-ichi
S
D016736:Antiphospholipid Syndrome / Q000150:complications*; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000209:etiology*; D002114:Calcinosis / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020945:Lupus Vasculitis, Central Nervous System / Q000150:complications*; D008875:Middle Aged