[Neuro-psychiatric disorders revealed pernicious disease without anemia. About three cases]

In addition to an anemic syndrome, pernicious disease can also include neuropsychiatric manifestations. We report here three cases diagnosed as pernicious disease revealed by neuropsychiatric symptoms and even without anemia. Our patients were made of a man and two women with a mean age of 55 years. They consulted for progressively worsening troubles of step which were related to a combined degeneration of the cord. This degeneration was associated to a cerebellar syndrome in one case. An isolated macrocytosis with a mean MGV at 109 fl, was noticed allowing thus to evoke the Biermer pernicious disease. This diagnosis was confirmed by the marrow puncture which showed a medullar megaloblastosis in two cases and an erythroblastic nucleocytoplasmic maturation's asynchronism. Treated by vitamin B12, the evolution was favorable in two cases with a total neurological recovery after six months in two patients. One patient died after six days of treatment following an acute myocardial infarction. If faced to symptoms made of a combined degeneration of the spinal card, a peripheral neuropathy and/or psychiatric troubles, pernicious disease is a diagnosis that we must evoke even in absence of anemia.