| Abstract: | We report on 3 sporadic cases of in utero onset megalencephaly. Children were born to healthy nonconsanguineous parents after uneventful pregnancies. Head circumferences were just above the 97th centile at birth in 2 patients, 2 cm above the 97th centile in 1 patient, and subsequently increased to 4.5–6.5 cm above the 97th centile at age 5 years. All patients completely lacked motor and speech development and showed very little intellectual progress. There was a distinctive facial aspect with frontal bossing, low nose bridge, and large eyes, but no cutaneous abnormalities and no signs of other organ involvement. Magnetic resonance imaging showed bilateral megalencephaly with a broad corpus callosum, enlarged white matter, and focally thick gray matter, resulting in pachygyric appearance of the cortex. Opercularization was incomplete, and the Sylvian fissures were wide. Somatosensory evoked potentials in 1 patient showed normal latencies of cervical and contracortical potentials but bilaterally increased cortical amplitudes. To the best of our knowledge, no similar case observations have been recorded previously. Am. J. Med. Genet. 79:161–167, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc. |
