[A novel adult case of acute necrotizing encephalopathy of childhood with bilateral symmetric thalamic lesions].

This report describes a 46-year-old Japanese woman with bilateral symmetric thalamic necrosis. The unusual radiologic findings are discussed in relation with acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE) of childhood, a rare disease proposed by Mizuguchi et al. ANE affects young children and the incidence is highest between 6 and 18 months of ages. There is only one report of an adult case. The acute stage pathology in ANE can be summarized as acute edema and necrosis involving both gray and white matter by local breakdown of the blood-brain barrier. The radiologic findings in our case were similar to those in ANE of childhood. Though the pathogenesis between our adult case and ANE of childhood might be different, severe hypoalbuminea in our case could cause the alteration of permeability of the thalamic vessels, which might accelerate breakdown of the blood-brain barrier in the thalamus.