Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis is a recently discovered autoimmune disorder, in which antibodies target NMDARs in the brain, leading to their removal from synapses. Early in the disease course, patients often present with marked psychosis and mood disturbances (i.e. mania, depression), explaining why most of these patients are first seen by psychiatrists. Hence, autoimmune encephalitis is receiving growing attention from psychiatry, mainly owing to concerns over misdiagnosing immunomediated and potentially curable disorders as primary psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia or major depressive disorder. Although anti-NMDAR encephalitis occurs in the context of new-onset psychiatric symptoms, there is a lack of information on differential diagnosis and treatment of this disorder after a long-term diagnostic history of functional psychiatric disorders. We report a case of a patient with a long history of bipolar affective disorder evolving with anti-NMDAR encephalitis, initially misdiagnosed as non-organic psychosis.
Described in 1962, the opsoclonus-myoclonus-ataxia syndrome (OMAS) is a rare, neurologically debilitating disorder with distinct characteristics that may begin in childhood or adult life. Although many cases remain without etiological diagnosis, others are related to neoplasms and infectious diseases. We report a 41-year-old previously healthy male with an 8-day history of headache, vertigo, nausea, vomiting, and nystagmus. After a normal brain computed tomography and lymphocytic pleocytosis in cerebral spinal fluid (CSF), intravenous acyclovir therapy was initiated in the emergency room. On the third day of hospitalization, the diagnosis of OMAS was made based on the presence of chaotic and irregular eye movements, dysarthric speech, gait instability, generalized tremor, and myoclonic jerks. In the face of his neurological worsening, ampicillin followed by nonspecific immunotherapy (methylprednisolone and intravenous immunoglobulin) was prescribed, with mild clinical improvement. After a thorough laboratory workup, the definite diagnosis of neuroborreliosis was established and ceftriaxone (4 g/daily/3 wks) and doxycycline (200 mg/day/2 mo) was administered. Toward the end of the ceftriaxone regimen, the neurologic signs substantially improved. We believe this to be the first case description of OMAS as clinical presentation of Brazilian Lyme disease-like syndrome (Baggio-Yoshinari syndrome).
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate mammographic breast density in asymptomatic menopausal women in correlation with clinical and sonographic findings. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Mammograms and clinical and sonographic findings of 238 asymptomatic patients were retrospectively reviewed in the period from February/2022 to June/2006. The following variables were analyzed: mammographic density patterns, sonographic findings, patients' age, parity, body mass index and use of hormone replacement therapy. RESULTS: Age, parity and body mass index showed a negative correlation with breast density pattern, while use of hormone replacement therapy showed a positive correlation. Supplementary breast ultrasonography was performed in 103 (43.2%) patients. Alterations which could not be visualized at mammography were found in 34 (33%) of them, most frequently in women with breast density patterns 3 and 4. CONCLUSION: The authors concluded that breast density patterns were influenced by age, parity, body mass index and time of hormone replacement therapy. Despite not having found any malignant abnormality in the studied cases, the authors have observed a predominance of benign sonographic abnormalities in women with high breast density patterns and without mammographic abnormalities, proving the relevance of supplementary ultrasonography to identify breast lesions in such patients.
A 42-year-old male patient admitted to our service with a history of progressive and symmetrical weakness, paresthesia of the lower limbs, weight loss and urinary retention for about 8 months. Physical examination demonstrated poor general condition, lower limb edema, hepatomegaly and digital clubbing. Neurological examination showed a polyneuropathic pattern, with hypoesthesia and absence of deep reflexes of the lower limbs. Initial laboratory investigation demonstrated erythrocytosis and thyroid and adrenal dysfunction in addition to hypergammaglobulinemia. CSF analysis, due to the clinical suspicion of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, resulted in protein-cytological dissociation. PIDC was hypothesized to be due to light-chain disease, but for this association we supplemented with bone marrow analysis and whole-body CT scan, which showed 4% atypia in plasma cells and osteolytic and osteoblastic lesions in the vertebro-costal region between the 8th and 9th vertebrae. Subsequent biopsy confirmed plasmacytoma. He performed autologous bone marrow transplantation, but evolved with infectious complications and died within 3 months.
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