Meige's syndrome: clinical, pharmacological and radiological observations

The clinical pharmacological, and neuroradiological observations in six patients with spontaneous blepharospasm-oromandibular dystonia (Meige's) syndrome are recorded. This group consisted of five males and one female, mean age at onset being 50.3 years. The duration of symptoms ranged from three months to 12 years, three patients having had symptoms for over four years. The dyskinesia was arrhythmic and asymmetrical in the orbicularis oculi and masseter muscles electrophysiologically. Pharmacological studies evinced no consistent response to parenteral physostigmine, no response to oral levodopa and no significant improvement in the dyskinesia following oral haloperidol. Lumbar air encephalogram was done in five patients, and showed frontal cortical atrophy without ventricular dilation in three. It is concluded that Meige's syndrome is a distinct nosological entity, and that physostigmine test is unlikely to be helpful in the differential diagnosis from neuroleptic-induced tardive dyskinesia. Neurotransmitter imbalance in the basal ganglia in this disorder remains to be established, and at present there is no satisfactory drug treatment for this progressively disabling movement disorder.