Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy with Residual Mydriasis in an Adult: Should it Be Classified as Ophthalmoplegic Migraine?

Recurrent Headache With Diplopia: A Common Presentation of an Uncommon Entity

Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy (RPON) is a rare headache syndrome, the diagnosis of which can be daunting to those who are not familiar with it. It presents characteristically with recurrent ocular motor weakness and ipsilateral head pain without an underlying etiology and often has unique imaging findings. Even after the successful diagnosis of this entity, there are no published management guidelines. Here, we present the case of a 31-year-old man whom we diagnosed with RPON following two episodes of unilateral headache with ophthalmoplegia over a three-month period and treated successfully with high-dose steroids on both occasions. We highlight the lack of prior migraine history and seeming antecedent viral infection as potential supporting evidence that this condition has a unique pathophysiology different from migraine. We also highlight his dramatic and reproducible response to steroids as additional evidence that steroids are good acute treatment options for this condition. Finally, as our patient lacked the expected cranial nerve imaging abnormalities on head MRI, we suggest that cranial nerve thickening and/or enhancement on MR imaging is not a sine qua non for this diagnosis, contrary to the opinion of some experts.

A Case of Adult-Onset Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy With Bilateral Ophthalmoplegia

Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy (RPON), previously known as ophthalmoplegic migraine, is a disorder typically characterized by recurrent episodes of unilateral headache concurrent with ipsilateral ocular cranial nerve paresis which primarily affects children. Diagnosis is mostly one of exclusion, based on clinical symptoms, supplemented by imaging for enhanced or distorted oculomotor nerves. We present a case of RPON in a 24-year-old adult female with unique features of unilateral left headache with ipsilateral pupillary dilation spreading to bilateral dilation and no MRI findings of oculomotor nerve enhancement.

Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy: A case report with atypical features and a review of the literature

INTRODUCTION

Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy, previously known as Ophthalmoplegic Migraine, is a poorly characterized disorder mainly because there are few cases described. We report a new case of Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy and a review of the literature to contribute to increasing the knowledge of the clinical features of this disorder.

CASE REPORT AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A 45-year-old woman presented with adult-onset recurrent attacks of abducens and oculomotor palsy associated with diplopia followed by headache. Most notably, pain always presented many days after oculomotor impairment, a feature never described in the literature. A diagnosis of possible Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy was made after excluding other possible mimicking disorders. Symptoms usually resolved gradually with corticosteroid therapy, albeit without a clear-cut benefit.Clinical data collected from 1989 to 2022 showed that adult onset in Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy is not uncommon. While III cranial nerve palsy is typical, VI and IV nerve palsy have also been described.

PATHOPHYSIOLOGY AND DIAGNOSIS

Several hypotheses have been proposed, including nerve compression, ischemia or inflammation/demyelination, but none has been completely accepted.Diagnosis remains of exclusion; magnetic resonance imaging and blood exams are key in differential diagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS

Our case gives us the possibility to expand the clinical features of Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy, also contributing to updating the pathophysiological hypotheses.

Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy Mistaken for Oculomotor Schwannoma: A Case Report

Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy (RPON) is a headache disorder classified as a cranial neuropathy. It is characterized by episodes of unilateral headache followed by ipsilateral ophthalmoplegia due to ocular cranial nerve palsy. Symptoms usually subside spontaneously within weeks to months. RPON commonly occurs in childhood, though it is overlooked at times as a possible differential diagnosis. The pathophysiology of RPON is not entirely clear. Typical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings in children include nerve thickening and gadolinium enhancement. However, these findings are not specific to this condition. Nerve thickening in RPON can resemble schwannomas, thereby causing a diagnostic dilemma. Here, we present a 13-year-old boy with a history of unilateral headaches associated with ipsilateral ptosis and diplopia. The first MRI indicated thickening and gadolinium enhancement of the right oculomotor nerve, which was interpreted as a schwannoma. However, his symptoms resolved after a few weeks and the follow-up MRI showed resolution of nerve changes. This clinical presentation was consistent with RPON. This case demonstrates the need for a careful follow-up of RPON patients.

Case report recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy

Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy (RPON) is a rare condition, previously known as Ophthalmoplegic Migraine, it is characterized by headache ipsilateral to paresis of the III, IV or VI cranial nerve, usually affects children or young adults. This is a report of a case of RPON in a 16-year-old woman treated at the Hospital do Servidor Público Estadual de São Paulo.

Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy in an Adult Patient: A Case Report With Literature Review

Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy (RPON), previously known as ophthalmoplegic migraine, is a rare disease that predominantly affects children. Recurrent episodes of ocular cranial nerve paresis with ipsilateral headache characterize this disorder. Diagnosis is mainly clinical with imaging being used as an adjunct. The pathophysiology of the disease is unknown. We present here a case of RPON in a 50-year-old female presenting with multiple episodes of headache and diplopia with associated transient thickening and enhancement of the ipsilateral oculomotor nerve on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

A Clinical Retrospective Study of Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy in Adults

Introduction

Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy (RPON) is quite rare and usually occurs in children. In this report, we describe the clinical features, diagnosis, and treatment of RPON in adults.

Methods

A retrospective review was conducted of all RPON cases seen and treated at the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center of Sun Yat-sen University and the Department of Neurology of the First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China, over the period from January 2016 to May 2020.

Results

A total of 8 patients (3 males and 5 females) with a mean age of 42.9 years (range: 23–64 years) met the diagnostic criteria of RPON. Headaches were present prior to the onset of ophthalmoplegic neuropathy in 50% of these patients, while in the remaining 50%, headaches occurred simultaneously with eye symptoms. The degree of these headaches was described as being mild or moderate. Abnormalities involving cranial nerve III were the most frequently reported pathologies (6 cases, 75%), followed by nerve VI (4 cases, 50%) and then nerve IV (1 case, 12.5%) (more than one nerve was affected in some cases). Following either with glucocorticoid treatment or with observation only, symptoms and signs within all 8 patients completely dissipated within 3–28 days.

Conclusions

All adult cases of RPON along with their clinical features as reported here were similar to those of children.

A case report of isolated abducens nerve palsy: idiopathic or ophthalmoplegic neuropathy?

Background

Abducens nerve is the most common nerve affected among other cranial nerves in terms of isolated ocular palsy. Despite its prevalence and progression made in neuroimaging, incidence of idiopathic cases continues to rise.

Case presentation

We report a young adult male with no previous illnesses, who presented with sudden onset of binocular diplopia and headache and was later diagnosed with an isolated ipsilateral abducens nerve palsy secondary to an unknown cause and treated with steroids. The palsy and diplopia had resolved in 2-month time but the patient still continued to suffer from a migraine, such as headache.

Conclusion

Although, we labelled the patient as idiopathic initially, another plausible cause for this kind of presentation could be recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy (RPON) owing to the nature of the presentation. Cases labelled as idiopathic could be attributed to a defined pathogenesis with detailed history and follow-up. Follow-up is vital for all patients, especially those labelled as idiopathic as recurrence of the illness have the chance of changing the diagnosis if supported by the detailed history and physical examination findings.

Proposed modified diagnostic criteria for recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy: Five case reports and literature review

Background

Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy (RPON) is an uncommon disorder characterized by recurrent unilateral headache attacks associated with ipsilateral ophthalmoplegia. We intend to study the clinical picture in our case series along with the published literature to discuss the pathogenesis and propose modified diagnostic criteria for recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy.

Methods

We reported five cases diagnosed as ophthalmoplegic migraine/RPON in our medical centers and reviewed the published literature related to RPON from the Pubmed database between 2000 and 2020. In one of these cases, a multiplanar reformation was performed to look at the aberrant cranial nerve.

Results

The mean onset age for RPON was 22.1 years, and the oculomotor nerve was the most commonly involved cranial nerve (53.9%) in 165 reviewed patients. In most patients, ophthalmoplegia started within 1 week of the headache attack (95.7%, 67/70). Additionally, 27.6% (40/145) of patients presented enhancement of the involved nerve(s) from MRI tests. Finally, 78 patients received corticosteroids, out of which 96.2% benefited from them.

Conclusion

This is the first time multiplanar reformation has been performed to reveal the distortion of the oculomotor nerve. Modified diagnostic criteria are proposed. We hope to expand the current knowledge and increase the detection of recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy in the future.

A Case of Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy

Ophthalmoplegic migraine (OM) is characterized by recurrent episodes of headache with unilateral ophthalmoplegia due to paresis of cranial nerve III, IV, or VI. The recent revision to the International Headache Classification has reclassified it as recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy (RPON). However, it is of note that the presentation of oculomotor nerve tumors may mimic RPON. Here, we report the case of a patient presenting with recurrent migraine and oculomotor palsy with several specific magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings. The patient was initially diagnosed with migraine 15 years ago, but since 10 years ago, his symptoms had evolved to include repeated oculomotor paralyzes. Before this attack, the patient did eventually recover completely each time after the initial episode. MRI performed during this attack revealed a nodular enhancing lesion described as schwannoma of the left oculomotor nerve, and on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), the nerve was isointense to the midbrain. The nodular enhancement became weaker, and the nerve's signal on DWI disappeared 3 months later as the patient's symptoms resolved mostly. This is the first case of RPON demonstrating an obvious change in signal of the affected nerve on DWI during the attack and remission.

Treatment of Recurrent Painful Ophthalmoplegic Neuropathy: A Case Where Pregabalin Was Successfully Employed

Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy, previously known as ophthalmoplegic migraine, is a rare condition that affects children and young adults. Its cause and classification are still controversial and, consequently, there are no published treatment guidelines or consensus. Glucocorticoids seem to be beneficial for some patients, but there is no established treatment when failure of this therapy occurs. The aim of this study was to report a case where pregabalin was successfully used after failure of glucocorticoid therapy in a patient with recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy.