The first Italian report on "Binswanger's disease"

The eponym "Binswanger's disease" is frequently used to indicate a form of vascular dementia characterized by white matter rarefaction and lacunar infarcts; however, it is difficult to find any consistency between this picture and the single case reported by Binswanger in 1894, which was vaguely defined both clinically and pathologically, and was probably a case of neurosyphilis. The first Italian report of a case of "Binswanger's disease" was published in 1958 by Donegani and Grattarola, who described a patient with a history of manic episodes followed by progressive mental deterioration. Pathological examination revealed changes mainly located in the hemispheric white matter, and the authors defined the patient as being affected by Binswanger's encephalopathy. Re-evaluation of this report indicates that the term "Binswanger's disease" has been applied to cases with non-specific clinical and pathological characteristics in the past. In this paper, we briefly compare Binswanger's original and the 1958 Italian case report, and discuss the current use of the term "Binswanger's disease".