Chest
Volume 96, Issue 5, November 1989, Pages 1212-1214
Journal home page for Chest

Selected Reports
Respiratory Failure due to Vocal Cord Dyskinesia in Olivo-Ponto-Cerebellar Atrophy

https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.96.5.1212Get rights and content

We present a case of OPCA with severe respiratory failure due to vocal cord dyskinesia. This vocal cord dyskinesia was found by fiberoptic bronchoscopy and confirmed by laryngeal electromyogram. Tracheal fenestration and drug therapy of halloperidol were successful for clinical improvement. To our knowledge, this is the first report of vocal cord dyskinesia in OPCA. We emphasized that OPCA could complicate vocal cord dyskinesia, causing severe respiratory failure.

Section snippets

Case Report

A 54-year-old housewife was admitted to Saga Medical School in July 1985 when she had cerebellar ataxia. Her head CT scan showed atrophies of cerebellar, pons and midbrain and then the diagnosis of OPCA was made by these findings. She had been well, except for cerebellar ataxia, until July 1987 when exertional dyspnea developed first. Then she was admitted to our hospital on July 7, 1987. The patient was in mild respiratory distress, afebrile with pulse rate of 124 beats per minute and

Discussion

Olivo-ponto-cerebellar atrophy is included in MSA which was described by Graham and Oppenheimer5 and Bannister and Oppenheimer6 on the basis of neuropathologic studies. The MSA shows degeneration of the cerebellar, extrapyramidal and autonomic systems. The OPCA starts with cerebellar ataxia and extrapyramidal signs, but fewer autonomic signs. Her head CT findings show atrophies of the pontine base and cerebellar cortex with dilatation of the fourth ventricle. In this patient, the diagnosis of

References (6)

  • A Williams et al.

    Vocal cord paralysis in Shy-Drager syndrome.

    J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatr

    (1979)
  • R Bannister et al.

    Laryngeal abductor paralysis in multiple system atrophy: a report on three necropsied cases, with observation on the laryngeal muscles and the nuclei ambigui.

    Brain

    (1981)
  • I Morikawa et al.

    A case of Shy-Drager syndrome with bilateral vocal cord dysfunction.

    Pract Otol

    (1987)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (0)

View full text