Familial Unverricht-Lundborg disease: a clinical, neurophysiologic, and genetic study.

Department of Child Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Bologna, Italy.

PURPOSE: Progressive myoclonus epilepsies (PMEs) are a clinically and etiologically heterogeneous group of disorders. The authors report clinical, neurophysiological, and genetic findings of a family from Southern Italy with three members affected with PME. METHODS: All data about familial and personal antecedents, clinical history, neurologic examination, laboratory tests, neurophysiological findings, brain imaging studies, and DNA analysis were examined. RESULTS: All results were compatible with the features of Unverricht-Lundborg disease and patients were homozygous for the "Finnish" ancestral haplotype. CONCLUSIONS: Work is in progress to identify and characterize the common EPM1 mutation in the Finnish patients. Subsequently, it will be possible to verify the hypothesis on the existence of a common mutation in the Finnish patients and the Italian family under study, or even in other Mediterranean EPM1 families.

PMID: 9186245 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]