“Supranuclear gaze palsy” (SGP) refers to impairment of horizontal gaze and/or vertical gaze. This symptom denotes “dysfunction in the connections responsible for conducting voluntary gaze commands to the brainstem gaze centers.”
As many of you know, SGP is a classic clinical feature of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). In fact, it is part of the diagnostic criteria for PSP. However, this symptom is not specific to PSP and can occur in many other neurological disorders, including parkinsonian conditions.
In this Washington University (St. Louis) study, researchers examined the clinical records of 221 parkinsonian patients who had visited the movement disorders clinic and who had donated their brains for research. [By the way, Brain Support Network has been responsible for over 650 brain donations — quite a bit more than the WashU brain bank.]
Of the 221 parkinsonian brains in their brain bank, 27 had supranuclear gaze palsy noted in the clinical records. The confirmed diagnoses of these 27 were:
* progressive supranuclear palsy (9),
* Parkinson’s Disease (10),
* multiple system atrophy (2),
* corticobasal degeneration (2),
* Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (1), and
* Huntington Disease (1).
The researchers also looked at the 14 brains donated of those with PSP in their brain bank. Nine of the 14 had clinical evidence of SGP but five did not.
Curiously, their brain bank doesn’t have many dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) cases because their brain bank has a bias towards movement disorders rather than dementia.
This paragraph about MSA is interesting:
“In a study of oculomotor function in MSA, Anderson and colleagues suggest that the presence of clinically slow saccades, or moderate-to-severe gaze restriction, implies a diagnosis other than MSA. In contrast, our data indicate that SGP can be seen in patients who have subsequent autopsy-confirmation of MSA at a frequency similar to that seen in PD. Cognitive impairment is an exclusion criterion for the diagnosis of multiple system atrophy (MSA), according to the second consensus statement. However, some patients with pathologically confirmed MSA have been reported to have dementia. Cykowski and colleagues have reported that the presence of Lewy body-like inclusions in neocortex in MSA, but not hippocampal alpha-synuclein pathology, was associated with cognitive impairment. We suggest that the association of SGP with MSA in some individuals provides further evidence for cortical pathology.”
The authors point out that other studies show that 90% of those with CBD develop SGP.
SGP is also reported in other disorders such as spinocerebellar degeneration, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Whipple disease, and Niemann-Pick disease type C.
I’ve copied the abstract below.
Robin
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Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2017 Feb 24. [Epub ahead of print]
Pathologic correlates of supranuclear gaze palsy with parkinsonism.
Martin WR, Hartlein J, Racette BA, Cairns N, Perlmutter JS.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION:
Supranuclear gaze palsy (SGP) is a classic clinical feature of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) but is not specific for this diagnosis and has been reported to occur in several other neurodegenerative parkinsonian conditions. Our objective was to evaluate the association between SGP and autopsy-proven diagnoses in a large population of patients with parkinsonism referred to a tertiary movement disorders clinic.
METHODS:
We reviewed clinical and autopsy data maintained in an electronic medical record from all patients seen in the Movement Disorders Clinic at Washington University, St. Louis between 1996 and 2015. All patients with parkinsonism from this population who had subsequent autopsy confirmation of diagnosis underwent further analysis.
RESULTS:
221 unique parkinsonian patients had autopsy-proven diagnoses, 27 of whom had SGP documented at some point during their illness. Major diagnoses associated with SGP were: PSP (9 patients), Parkinson disease (PD) (10 patients), multiple system atrophy (2 patients), corticobasal degeneration (2 patients), Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (1 patient) and Huntington disease (1 patient). In none of the diagnostic groups was the age of onset or disease duration significantly different between cases with SGP and those without SGP. In the PD patients, the UPDRS motor score differed significantly between groups (p = 0.01) with the PD/SGP patients having greater motor deficit than those without SGP.
CONCLUSION:
Although a common feature of PSP, SGP is not diagnostic for this condition and can be associated with other neurodegenerative causes of parkinsonism including PD.
Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
PMID: 28256434 (see pubmed.gov for this abstract only)