Summary
A Japanese man with a variety of neurological complications, had drunk Japanese rice wine (sake) daily for about 25 years. There was a progressive development of parkinsonism, cerebellar ataxia, and mental deterioration by the time he was 32. He died of pneumonia at age 50 and the autopsy revealed Marchiafava-Bignami disease (MBD), striatal degeneration, pseudolaminar sclerosis of Morel, atrophy of the corpus mamillare and pons, cortical cerebellar atrophy, pseudopellagra, and polyneuropathy. This is the first case of MBD in a Japanese related to the ingestion of Japanese “sake”, and it is also a rare case in that almost all of the neurological complications seen with chronic alcoholism were apparent. Striatal degeneration seems to be a rare complication of chronic alcoholism.
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Sato, Y., Tabira, T. & Tateishi, J. Marchiafava-bignami disease, striatal degeneration, and other neurological complications of chronic alcoholism in a Japanese. Acta Neuropathol 53, 15–20 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00697179
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00697179