Divergence of central nervous system involvement in 2 Italian sisters with congenital muscular dystrophy: a clinical and neuroradiological follow-up.

We report the clinical and neuroradiological follow-up of 2 Italian sisters, 10 and 6 years of age, affected by congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD) with divergent CNS involvement. In both, CMD was diagnosed by finding dystrophic alterations in muscle biopsy and muscular deficit at birth. The elder sister suffered also from marked intellectual deficit and epilepsy, as usually reported in children with Fukuyama CMD. In the same patient, at 2 years of age, CT scan showed severe hypodensity of cerebral white matter and severe ventricular dilatation of occipital horns. At 8 years of age, MRI also showed clearcut pachygyria mainly in the parietal and occipital lobes. MRI and CT scan at the same age showed improvement of the leukoencephalopathy and unchanged ventricular dilatation, as reported for patients with Fukuyama CMD. Unlike Japanese cases, however, she showed no progression in her muscular deficit and her muscle immunostaining of laminin M chain (merosin) was normal. The younger sister had normal mental development, never experienced epileptic fits and had always normal EEG. However, as often seen in classical CMD, her CT scan showed moderate hypomyelination of cerebral white matter and mild dilatation of lateral ventricles. MRI did not show any other brain abnormalities. Sequential CT scan at 2, 4 and 6 years of age showed improvement of the leukoencephalopathy. Her muscular deficit had a stationary clinical course. Her immunostaining of muscle merosin was moderately reduced. The finding of Fukuyama-like and classical CMD in 2 sisters indicates the possibility that different forms of CMD may be different expressions of the same genetic disease.