Introduction: Fahr’s disease is a rare pathology characterized by brain calcinosis syndrome, usually found incidentally and late in individuals with neurological and psychiatric symptoms, with these manifestations from an early age. It is a genetic disorder of unclear etiology of autosomal dominant behavior and can be a ssociated with metabolic, hereditary, or acquired etiology.
Objective: To present the case of a patient with Fahr’s disease treated in a second-level regional hospital in a rural area of central Andean Colombia.
Clinical case: This is a 54-year-old woman who consulted for the first seizure episode, with a significant pathological history of schizophrenia and a family history of maternal Alzheimer’s. Simple cerebral computed tomography was performed, which reported multiple periventricular calcifications and symmetric calcifications at the level of the basal ganglia with hypocalcemia and hypoparathyroidism.
Conclusions: Fahr’s disease is a rare entity, however, it is important to suspect and know about it early; Diagnostic images are essential for detection, and the search for differential diagnoses or associated metabolic causes is important for treating these patients in a timely and adequate manner.
Síndrome de Fahr
Síndrome de Fahr e hipoparatiroidismo. Fahr syndrome and hypoparathyroidism.
Síndrome de Fahr Secundario a Hiperparatiroidismo Primario e Isquemia Cerebral: A Propósito de un Caso. Fahr Syndrome Secondary To Primary Hyperparathyroidism And Cerebral Ischemia: A Case Report.
Fahr’s syndrome (FS) is a rare neurodegenerative condition, characterized by cerebral calcifications mainly in the basal ganglia. Although its most common presentation are the disorders of movement, cognition, behavior and epilepsy, in recent years cases of cerebrovascular disease (CVD) related to this entity have been appearing.
We report a 59-year-old male patient who presented 2 transitory ischemic attacks (TIAs), the 1st of 5 minutes, of speech alteration what happened unnoticed, and the second of 45 minutes, 2 weeks later, of speech alteration, loss of muscle strength and tingling sensation in the left side of the body. Brain computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging revealed calcifications suggestive of FS and a treatable cause was found (primary hyperparathyroidism with hypovitaminosis D). The patient was treated with aspirin, atorvastatin and colecalciferol without vascular recurrence and the levels of vitamin D and PTH normalized. Although the association between CVD in young people and SF has not yet been determined, the occurrence of these cases leads us to suspect that ischemic CVD could be part of the natural history of this entity. Being the prevalence of FS unknown, we alert clinicians to keep CVD in mind as a form of presentation of this condition. We review the association between FS and ischemic CVD (without in clusion of aneurysmal disease).
