Marchiafava: Bignami Disease Treated with Parenteral Thiamine

Marchiafava - Bignami disease is rare sequelae of chronic alcohol use. We present a case with transient ischemic attack like presentation and its management with parenteral thiamine. A 53 year old male with history of country liquor use since 32 years was brought to hospital with acute onset of delirium & mild weakness involving motor functions of left side of the body, non-reactive planters and exaggerated tendon reflexes on left side. The MRI showed bilateral hyper intense signal on T2W and FLAIR images & Hypo intense lesion on T1W images involving body, genu and splenium of corpus callosum. The features are suggestive of Marchiafava - Bignami Disease. There have been few guidelines for management of MBD and literature supports use of parenteral thiamine 500mg leading to remission of symptoms and symptomatic improvement. It is advisable to use parenteral thiamine in all cases as it overlaps management of other co-morbidities of chronic alcoholism.