Clinical-pathomorphological correlation in patients with symptomatic dystonias

Symptomatic dystonia can be the result of various metabolic, degenerative diseases, the consumption of certain medications or exposure to toxic agents. However, only symptomatic dystonia with focal structural lesion provides a significant "window" for, at least indirect, perception of aetiopa-thogenesis and pathomorphological substratum of idiopathic dystonia. Our study included 57 patients with symptomatic dystonia, which as a base had focal or multifocal lesions, of whom 7 patients had generalized dystonia, 18 hemidystonia, 6 segmental dystonia, 7 torticollis, 6 blepharospasm, 7 hand dystonia, 3 spasmodic dysphonia, and 3 had oromandibular dystonia. Stroke was highly statistically the most frequent cause of structural lesions (33/57 or 58%). Relevant pathomorphological changes were present in 50/57 (88%) patients, of whom 25 (50%) had lesion in the lenticular nucleus (including individual damage of the putamen and globus pallidus), 12/50 (24%) had damage of the thalamus and 6/50 (12%) had damage of the brainstem. Generalized dystonia was most frequently associated with bilateral lesion of the putamen, hemidystonia with lesion of contralateral putamen, torticollis with damage of the caudate nucleus, hand dystonia with lesion of the thalamus and blepharospasm with lesion of the upper brainstem.