Subacute cerebellar degeneration as a remote effect of breast cancer

Clinical investigations on the case of a 61-year-old woman with a few year history of neurological symptoms, who underwent mastectomy caused by ductal carcinoma, 12 years prior to the appearance of the clinical syndrome did not reveal the cause of the disease. On the post-mortem examination solitary metastasis of adenocarcinoma to the retroperitoneal lymph node was present. Histologically, in the cerebellum the degeneration of the Purkinje cells with extensive Bergmann glia reaction was diagnosed. The authors discuss the connection between lesions of CNS and neoplastic disease.