Neurológia pre prax 4/2022

Neuromyelitis optica imitating astrocytoma

Our case report presents a 23-year-old young female who was admitted to the Department of Neurology at the University Hospital Ostrava for further investigation of progressive central quadruparesis and a finding of an elongated spindle-shaped lesion with affection of the spinal gray matter in the cervical and rostral thoracic spinal segments on a T2 weighted magnetic resonance imaging. In a differential diagnosis process of a patient with an extensive spinal cord hypersignal lesion on T2 weighted images it is important to take into our diagnostic considerations a diagnosis from the neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders, and both the anti-aquaporin and anti-myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibodies should be tested from the serum, so that these patients do not have to undergo a spinal cord surgery due to a misdiagnosis of spinal cord tumour.

Keywords: AQP4-IgG, MOG-IgG, Wingerchuk’s diagnostic criteria, myelitis