Westphal Variant of Huntington's Disease

Abstract

A Westphal variant of Huntington's disease (HD) is an infrequent presentation of this inherited neurodegenerative disorder. Here, we describe a 14-year-old girl who developed symptoms at the age of 7, with molecular evidence of abnormally expanded Cytosine-Adenine-Guanine (CAG) repeats in exon 1 of the Huntingtin gene. We briefly review the classical features of this variant highlighting the importance of suspecting HD in a child with parkinsonism and a family history of movement disorder or dementia.

Keywords

juvenile Huntington's disease - HTT gene - CAG repeat expansion

• References

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