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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Indian J Radiol Imaging 2019; 29(04): 435-437
DOI: 10.4103/ijri.IJRI_412_18
Case Report

Hypertrophic olivary degeneration: A case report

Meltem Özdemir
Department of Radiology, Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Sciences, Ankara, Turkey
,
Aynur Turan
Department of Radiology, Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Sciences, Ankara, Turkey
,
Rasime Pelin Kavak
Department of Radiology, Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Sciences, Ankara, Turkey
,
Alper Dilli
Department of Radiology, Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Sciences, Ankara, Turkey
› Author Affiliations Financial support and sponsorship This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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Abstract

Hypertrophic olivary degeneration is a rare occurrence in which different pathological processes including enlargement and vacuolation of the neurons, demyelination of the white matter, and fibrillary gliosis of the inferior olivary nucleus take place. It mostly develops secondary to a destructive lesion involving the Guillain–Mollaret pathway. The mostly reported destructive lesions causing hypertrophic olivary degeneration are stroke, trauma, tumors, neurosurgical interventions, and gamma knife treatment of brainstem cavernoma. It presents with symptomatic palatal tremor, and typically appears as an expansive nonenhancing nodular lesion that shows increased signal intensity on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The identification of hypertrophic olivary degeneration on MRI is of great importance as its MRI appearance is very similar to those of more severe pathologies, including tumors, infarction, demyelinating lesions, and infections. We present a case of hypertrophic olivary degeneration in a patient with a history of ischemic stroke two years before the development of palatal tremor.

Keywords

Guillain–Mollaret triangle - hypertrophic olivary degeneration - magnetic resonance imaging


Publication History

Received: 25 October 2018

Accepted: 05 June 2019

Article published online:
21 July 2021

© 2019. Indian Radiological Association. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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