Bone dysplasia with optic atrophy, vascular malformation and seizures in a 14-year-old girl : a case report

Background: The heritable skeletal dysplasias or osteochondrodysplasias are a large heterogeneous group of disorders associated with abnormal shape, growth, or integrity of bones. Osteopetrosis is a collective term for a range of sclerosing bone diseases with various degree of defective remodeling. Increased bone density is the predominant radiologic feature. The skull is often involved with basal sclerosis and the sinuses are obliterated. The most serious consequences of the osteopetroses are seen in the nervous system. Because of perturbed remodeling of the skull bones, many aspects of the brain and cranial nerve function are endangered. Cranial nerves, blood vessels and the spinal cord may be compressed by progressive occlusion of cranial foramina. Carious, misplaced teeth, dysplastic fingernails, tendency to pathologic fractures are the other clinical manifestations. Case report: The authors present a 14-year-old girl with dysmorphic features, optic atrophy, CNS vessel malformation, pathologic fractures and seizures. The girl had a wide range of clinical and radiographic symptoms of bone dysplasias together with a giant left internal carotid artery aneurysm and epilepsy. Conclusions: On the basis of clinical and radiological features, a disease belonging to the group of skeletal dysplasias was recognized in our patient. The configuration of the presented symptoms does not allow at the moment strict classification to hitherto determined forms of dysplasia. This leads to the necessity of extending diagnostics, especially by molecular tests, and further long-lasting observations, which perhaps would allow classification of the presented syndrome to one of the known groups, or determination of a new clinical entity