Abstract
Opsoclonus, a dramatic and chaotic abnormal eye movement, was seen in three patients. The first patient, a 56-year-old man with lung cancer, exhibited opsoclonus under the paraneoplastic process. Autopsy revealed no typical pathologic findings in the brainstem or cerebellum, suggesting cellular dysfunc-tion at the molecular level without any anatomically distinguishable changes. Two other patients, a 40-year-old woman and a 49-year-old man, both suffering from spino-cerebellar degeneration, demonstrated transient but obvious opsoclonus. Previously, it was widely accepted that because of the acute sign, degenerative disease could not be associated with opsoclonus. The two rare cases presented here, supported by precise ENG (electronystagmograph) findings, suggest, to the contrary, that opsoclonus should be associated with degenerative disease.
