Wilson's disease. Clinical correction with cranial computed tomography.

Cranial computed tomograms of 12 patients with proven Wilson's disease were correlated with clinical disturbances. CT abnormalities occurred only in the eight patients with neurological manifestations. The presence of atrophy and low density lesions of the basal ganglia shown on CT correlated well with clinical signs of extrapyramidal dysfunction. Cerebral atrophy and cerebellar cortical atrophy were only moderately related to the degree of intellectual dysfunction and ataxia, respectively; there were no specific clinical signs in cases with brainstem involvement. Abnormalities may be marked in scans taken within a year of neuropsychiatric symptoms, but the most severely abnormal CT scans occurred in patients with a relatively longer duration of untreated disease. Computed tomography provides the opportunity to follow the response of the abnormalities of the brain to cupruresis and can give some assistance in management.