A clinical case of ocular onchocerciasis: clinical, angiofluorographic and developmental aspects

The authors discuss one case of ocular onchocerciasis. Not only corneal damage (punctate keratitis) is present, but also chorioretinal signs are seen: in the right eye at an advanced stage and in the left one provoked by the onset of the specific treatment using diethylcarbamazine citrate. During the 1 st year follow up, a further evolution of the chorioretinal lesion was noted in the right eye, while the left eye presented a partial regression of the above lesions. The characteristic angiographic findings, the particular site (temporal paramacular) and the arousal of the lesions provoked by the treatment are factors which denote the importance of choriocapillaritis, probably due to immunity reactions.     

The Italian validation of the Communicative Effectiveness Index Questionnaire: a multicentric study

Neurological Sciences - Common assessment tools for aphasia evaluate single language impairments but not their functional impact on patient’s communication skills in daily life. The lack of...     

Carcinoma of the tongue and bulbar-onset amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: unusual differential diagnosis

We present a 72-year-old woman with progressive dysphagia, dysarthria and tongue palsy who was initially diagnosed with bulbar-onset amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). However, the absence of atrophy or fasciculations in the tongue, as in other voluntary muscles, and the lack of reproducible neurophysiological evidence of denervation, prompted a revision of the diagnostic work-up, which eventually led to the discovery of a carcinoma of the tongue. This case report describes a relatively rare type of oropharyngeal carcinoma that, in its early stage, resembled a bulbar-onset ALS. This differential diagnosis is unusual, and it was fostered by the persistent lack of atrophy of the tongue and the absence of spreading of signs and symptoms of motor neuron degeneration.