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Published on: August 12, 2019
Thalamic aphasia secondary to glioblastoma multiforme
Amjad Samara1, Brent Berry2, Malik Ghannam2
1Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center, Little Rock, AR, USA; Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Palestine.
Background:
Thalamic aphasia is an unusual clinical presentation of brain neoplasm with few cases reported. Herein, we present a case of an adult woman with thalamic aphasia due to glioblastoma of the thalamus.
Case Presentation:
A 57-year-old female patient presented with difficulty walking, slow speech and cognition and altered mental status. At baseline, she was conversant and interactive. Physical examination showed right hemiparesis in addition to word finding difficulties, an impaired naming of objects and semantic paraphasia but preserved repetition and comprehension. The remaining neurological exam was otherwise unremarkable. Brain CT and brain MRI scans showed a left thalamic lesion that is centrally necrotic and peripherally enhancing suggestive of a high-grade neoplasm. Eventually, histopathological examination of brain biopsy confirmed the diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme. Thalamic aphasia was proposed as an explanation for the neurological symptoms observed in this patient.
Conclusions:
This patient demonstrates an unusual presentation of glioblastoma multiforme as thalamic aphasia. It may also point to the potential contribution of the understanding of how thalamic aphasia evolves to characterize the role of the thalamus in language functions.
