A distinct phenotype of childhood leukodystrophy presenting as absence seizure

Leukoencephalopathy refers to any disease of the white matter including hereditary as well as acquired and toxic causes. Inherited leukodystrophies are diseases of myelin including abnormal myelin development, hypomyelination, or degeneration of myelin. We report a 6-year old female who presented with absence seizure at the age of 4 years. Cerebral magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain showed bilateral periventricular confluent high signal intensity. The seizure responded to anticonvulsant therapy, and the clinical course was characterized by normal development and neurological examination.

Ethylmalonic encephalopathy associated with crescentic glomerulonephritis

Ethylmalonic encephalopathy (EE) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations in the ETHE1 gene and characterized by chronic diarrhea, encephalopathy, relapsing petechiae and acrocyanosis. Nephrotic syndrome has been described in an infant with EE but the renal histology findings were not described in previous reports. We report a Palestinian girl with EE who presented with chronic diarrhea, encephalopathy, petechial rash and acrocyanosis. Subsequently, she developed progressive deterioration of renal function caused by rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis resulting in death within few days. This is, to our knowledge, the first reported occurrence of rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis in a child with ethylmalonic encephalopathy. Its presence is a serious complication associated with poor prognosis and may be explained by the diffuse vascular damage.