Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0013362 (dysarthria)
 3,768 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Neurological involvement occurred in every one of a series of 30 patients with an insulinoma. The episodic nature of the hypoglycaemia caused symptoms and signs to fluctuate and often led to delay in diagnosis (mean length of history was 3 years). The commonest feature at first presentation was confusion (20 instances), but as the illness evolved, coma (16 instances) and convulsions (8 instances) became more frequent. Objective weakness was found in 7 patients, with 3 examples of hemiparesis and 2 each of paraparesis and monoparesis; in all, the weakness resolved over a period of 1 hr to 3 days when normoglycaemia was maintained. Other neurological features included subjective visual disturbances, headache, dysarthria and ataxia. 220 patients with an insulinoma from 7 series in the literature were reviewed. The high incidence of neurological features was confirmed, with confusion (152 cases), coma (82 cases) and convulsions (58 cases) predominating. Visual disturbances were common, though not accurately quantified in some series. Objective evidence of weakness on the other hand was reported in only 6 of the 222 patients. Other less common symptoms included headache (18 instances) and peripheral paraesthesiae (14 instances). In the 7 series reviewed, as in our own, it was found that in any one patient, each episode of hypoglycaemia was accompanied by the same symptom complex. The presence of an insulinoma should be considered in any patient with unusual, or inexplicable neurological features, particularly when they are intermittent. The diagnosis can be confirmed by demonstrating an inappropriately high circulating insulin level, for the ambient blood glucose concentration.
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PMID:Neurological aspects of insulinomas. 609 Oct 78

We report a case of a 22-year-old male who was transferred to our hospital in a comatose state following successive seizures. Low blood glucose had been detected upon his arrival at the previous hospital. He became responsive 12 days after the onset of coma. Upon regaining consciousness he exhibited severe dysarthria and several interhemispheric disconnection signs such as intermanual conflict, left-hand dysgraphia, left hemispatial neglect confined to the right hand, impaired interhemispheric transfer, and unilateral constructional apraxia of the right hand. Brain MRI disclosed T2-weighted and diffusion-weighted hyperintense lesions with reduced apparent diffusion coefficients in the bilateral centrum semiovale, splenium of the corpus callosum, right posterior limb of the internal capsule, and bilateral middle cerebellar peduncles. As the MRI findings vanished, his interhemispheric disconnection signs gradually resolved. Abdominal imaging studies revealed a pancreatic tumor, which was later endocrinologically diagnosed as an insulinoma. This is an extremely rare report of interhemispheric disconnection signs due to hypoglycemic encephalopathy. The lesions in the bilateral centrum semiovale likely contributed to the interhemispheric disconnection signs.
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PMID:Transient interhemispheric disconnection in a case of insulinoma-induced hypoglycemic encephalopathy. 2413 56