A 9-y-old girl was admitted with fever, weakness and weight loss. She had pancytopenia in peripheral blood, hypocellularity and hemophagocytosis in bone marrow. Disseminated tuberculosis was diagnosed after a long delay, with involvement of the lungs, bone marrow, liver, spleen and central nervous system. Tuberculosis can be a cause of hemophagocytosis and should be taken into account in the differential diagnosis of fever of unknown origin associated with pancytopenia and hemophagocytosis.
We present two siblings with pontocerebellar hypoplasia who have progressive microcephaly, mental and motor retardation, truncal ataxia, strabismus, and progressive spasticity and hyperreflexia of the lower limbs. Extrapyramidal dyskinesia and epilepsy, other main clinical features of pontocerebellar hypoplasia, are absent. The older sibling also has a high arched palate, triangular-shaped face, thoracolumbar scoliosis, pectus carinatum, kyphosis, cubitus valgus, arachnodactyly, long extremities, and a tall stature, which were not previously reported in association with pontocerebellar hypoplasia. The clinical phenotype should be expanded, especially within type II, with the reports of additional cases.
Rhombencephalosynapsis is a rare congenital abnormality characterized by noncleavage of the cerebellar hemispheres and dentate nuclei with agenesis or severe hypoplasia of the cerebellar vermis. We report an 8-month-old boy with hypotonia, mental and motor retardation, and capillary hemangiomas on his pretibial region. Cranial magnetic resonance imaging revealed vermian hypoplasia with fused cerebellar hemispheres called rhombencephalosynapsis. Other cerebellar and cerebral structures were normal. With this constellation of findings, we attempt to identify the pathogenesis of this posterior fossa malformation. We also discuss cerebellar embryogenesis to differentiate this condition from other posterior fossa malformations such as Dandy-Walker malformation and Joubert's syndrome.
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