Rinsho Shinkeigaku (Clinical Neurology)

Brief Clinical Note

Multiple cerebral white matter lesions following head trauma with eyeball contusion

Tomomi Nakamura, M.D.1), Kohei Ota, M.D.1)2), Naoki Niwa, M.D.3), Megumi Takeuchi, M.D.1), Shinichiro Uchiyama, M.D.1) and Makoto Iwata, M.D.1)

1)Department of Neurology, Neurological Institute, Tokyo Women's Medical University School of Medicine
2)Faculty of Science, Tokyo University of Science
3)Department of Neurology, Numazu City Hospital

We reported a 36-year-old man with multiple cerebral white matter lesions following head trauma with eyeball contusion. He had suffered from optic neuritis on non-injured side after one and half months from the head trauma. Brain MRI revealed multiple cerebral white matter lesions and lumbar puncture disclosed an elevated level of protein of the cerebrospinal fluid after two and half months from the head trauma. He was treated with steroid pulse therapy and resulted in an improvement of his visual acuity and a remarkable decrease of multiple cerebral white matter lesions. There has been a controversy concerning the causal relationship between trauma and multiple sclerosis (MS). In this case, MS-like multiple cerebral white matter lesions are considered to be relevant to the head trauma.

(CLINICA NEUROL, 44: 108|110, 2004)
key words: head trauma, eyeball contusion, brain magnetic resonance imaging, multiple cerebral white matter lesions, multiple sclerosis

(Received: 7-May-03)