Abstract
A 26-year-old male came to our clinic with the complaints of diplopia and dizziness. Although his complaints had persisted from 11 years ago, examinations including computed tomography scan had not shown any abnomal findings.
Auditory brainstem responses (ABR) indicated right-side brainstem lesions.
Monocular recordings of the optokinetic pattern test (OKP) and eye tracking test (ETT) showed right-side pontine dorsal lesions with paramedian pontine reticular formation (PPRF) and medial longitudinal fasciculus (MLF). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a high intensity area in the thalamus, occipital lobe, tegmentum and pons on T 2-weighted images. The tumor was diagnosed as gliomatosis cerbri by the histopathological examination of the needle biopsy from the occipital lobe lesion. In spite of intensive chemotherapy, he died of respiratory complications 7 months after admission. Gliomatosis cerebri is a rare clinical entity characterized by diffuse and infiltrative overgrowth of the tumor cells. Most of the reported cases were diagnosed by autopsy because the clinical diagnosis of gliomatosis cerebri has been difficult. We made the clinical diagnosis of pontine gliomatosis cerebri based on the MRI findings and biopsy. Neurotological findings were useful for defining the pontine lesions. The clinical diagnosis and neurotological findings of the present case are discussed in this report.
