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Symptomatic dystonias associated with structural brain lesions: report of 16 cases
V S Kostić1, M Stojanović-Svetel, A Kacar
1Institute for Neurology CCS, Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
Background:
Symptomatic (secondary) dystonias associated isolated lesions in the brain provide insight into etiopathogenesis of the idiopathic form of dystonia and are a basis for establishing the possible correlation between the anatomy of a lesion and the type of dystonia according to muscles affected.
Methods:
In 358 patients with differently distributed dystonias, a group of 16 patients (4.5%) was encountered in whom dystonia was associated with focal brain lesions.
Results:
Of the 16 patients, 3 patients had generalized, 3 segmental and 4 hemidystonia, while the remaining 6 patients had focal dystonia. The most frequent etiologies were infarction in 7, and tumor in 4 patients. These lesions were usually found in the lenticular and caudate nucleus, thalamus, and in the case of blepharospasm in the upper brainstem.
Conclusions:
Our results support the suggestion that dystonia is caused by a dysfunction of the basal ganglia.