Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0008489 (chorea)
 2,102 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

It is known that chorea is a rarely-occurring complication of oral contrceptive therapy. 5 case histories of chorea in patients receiving either low- or high-dose estrogen-containing contraceptives are reviewed. All the patients were young and nulliparous. They developed the symptoms within an average of 5 weeks after therapy initiation. Dyskinesia ceased upon cessation of the oral contraceptive therapy. A summary of 17 previously-reported cases of oral contraceptive-associated chorea is also presented in tabular form. These cases plus the 5 reviewed in this paper suggest that chorea arises in women with abnormalities of the basal ganglia of various etiologies and will probably not occur in normal individuals. Studies with animals have indicated that female sex hormones may enhance central dopaminergic sensitivity, bringing on chorea in oral contraceptive patients. In the 3 of 5 patients here described who had previously experienced an episode of chorea, the contraceptive-induced disorders, i.e., asymmetries, orofacial involvement, and personality changes, were similar to the original movement disorders. The other 2 cases studied here had not experienced a chorea episode but did have a history of neonatal cyanosis.
 ...
PMID:Chorea induced by oral contraceptives. 57 24

Two cases of polycythaemic chorea are described, both of which were complicated by severe heart disease. The first was a child with patent ductus arteriosus and coarctation of the aorta causing severe cyanosis and secondary polycythaemia. Chorea began intermittently at an early age, becoming continuous by his fifth birthday. The second was a middle-aged male with tight mitral stenosis and a story of paralytic chorea in his teens. Polycythaemia rubra vera was eventually diagnosed two years after mitral valvotomy, some seven years after the onset of chorea.
 ...
PMID:Chorea, polycythaemis, and cyanotic heart disease. 118 93

A left-handed 26-year-old woman was hospitalized in December 1984 for abnormal movements on the left side which had appeared abruptly 16 days earlier. Her medical history included neonatal anoxia with cyanosis and reanimation after a difficult delivery, and ophthalmic migraines. There were no previous rheumatismal or choreic episodes. The patient had taken a diphasic oral contraceptive (OC) containing 30 ng and 40 ng of ethinyl estradiol and 1 mg and 2 mg of norethisterone from 1976 to 1981 and had had a normal pregnancy and delivery in November 1983. In June 1984, 3 weeks after resuming use of the same pill, the patient began suffering violent migraines which persisted on a daily basis for 1 month. The abnormal movements of the left side were very broad at the outset. 3 days before hospitalization the OC was discontinued and the symptoms abated somewhat. On hospitalization, brusque, variable and arhythmic muscular jerks were visible on the face and left arm and leg. The left half of the body was hypotonic. The condition appeared to be hemichorea. A radioimmunologic test for synthetic steroid antihormone antibodies demonstrated the presence of anti-ethinyl estradiol antibodies at a level of 410 cpm, compared to the normal value of under 100 cpm. The electromyographic pattern was that of chorea. On discharge 12 days later the choreic movements had abated considerably after treatment with haloperidol 20 mg/day. 4 weeks after discontinuation of the OC and after discontinuation of the haloperidol, the abnormal muscular activity had disappeared; a neurologic examination 1 month later was normal. OCs have been proven responsible for some cases of chorea although the number of reported cases is small. Among hypotheses advanced to explain development of chorea are preexisting presence of unilateral lesions in the gray matter following a rheumatismal or viral episode or neonatal trauma which predisposes to a subsequent chorea induced by hormonal impregnation, or an immunologic action analogous to the mechanism of rheumatismal chorea.
 ...
PMID:[Hemichorea and oral contraceptives]. 408 98