Moeller AA, Felker MV, Brault JA, Duncan LC, Hamid R, Golomb MR. Patients With Extreme Early Onset Juvenile Huntington Disease Can Have Delays in Diagnosis: A Case Report and Literature Review.
Child Neurol Open 2021;
8:2329048X211036137. [PMID:
34423068 PMCID:
PMC8371413 DOI:
10.1177/2329048x211036137]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2021] [Accepted: 07/05/2021] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Huntington disease (HD) is caused by a pathologic cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) trinucleotide repeat expansion in the HTT gene. Typical adult-onset disease occurs with a minimum of 40 repeats. With more than 60 CAG repeats, patients can have juvenile-onset disease (jHD), with symptom onset by the age of 20 years. We report a case of a boy with extreme early onset, paternally inherited jHD, with symptom onset between 18 and 24 months. He was found to have 250 to 350 CAG repeats, one of the largest repeat expansions published to date. At initial presentation, he had an ataxic gait, truncal titubation, and speech delay. Magnetic resonance imaging showed cerebellar atrophy. Over time, he continued to regress and became nonverbal, wheelchair-bound, gastrostomy-tube dependent, and increasingly rigid. His young age at presentation and the ethical concerns regarding HD testing in minors delayed his diagnosis.
Collapse