Characteristics of neurological Wilson's disease with corpus callosum abnormalities.
BACKGROUND
Wilson's disease (WD) is an autosomal recessive disease of impaired copper metabolism. Previous study demonstrated that WD with corpus callosum abnormalities (WD-CCA) was limited to the posterior part (splenium). This study aimed to compare clinical features between WD-CCA and WD without corpus callosum abnormalities (WD-no-CCA).


METHODS
Forty-one WD patients who had markedly neurological dysfunctions were included in this study. We retrospectively reviewed clinical, biochemical characteristics and MRI findings in the 41 WD patients. All patients were assessed using the Unified Wilson's Disease Rating Scale.


RESULTS
Nine patients had corpus callosum abnormalities, 4 of 9 patients had abnormal signal in the genu and splenium, 5 of 9 patients had abnormal signal only in the splenium. WD-CCA had longer course (9.9 ± 4.0 years vs. 3.4 ± 3.6 years, p<0.01), more severe neurological dysfunctions (37.6 vs. 65.9, p<0.01) and higher psychiatric symptoms scores (11.2 vs. 22.5, p<0.01) than WD-no-CCA. The MRI findings indicated that WD-CCA had higher ratio than WD-no-CCA in globus pallidus (88.9% vs. 43.8%, p = 0.024) and thalamus (100% vs. 59.4%, p = 0.038). The index of liver function and copper metabolism had no significant in WD-CCA and WD-no-CCA patients.


CONCLUSION
Our findings indicate Wilson's disease can involve the posterior as well as the anterior part of CC and patients with CC involvement had more extensive brain lesions, more severe neurological dysfunctions and psychiatric symptoms.
['Zhou|Zhi-Hua|ZH|http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6262-6365', 'Wu|Yun-Fan|YF|', 'Cao|Jin|J|', 'Hu|Ji-Yuan|JY|', 'Han|Yong-Zhu|YZ|', 'Hong|Ming-Fan|MF|', 'Wang|Gong-Qiang|GQ|', 'Liu|Shu-Hu|SH|', 'Wang|Xue-Min|XM|']
D000328:Adult D003337:Corpus Callosum D005260:Female D006527:Hepatolenticular Degeneration D006801:Humans D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging D008297:Male D012189:Retrospective Studies
Corpus callosum Neurological dysfunction Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) Unified Wilson’s disease rating scale (UWDRS) Wilson’s disease