Fahr's Disease With Intracerebral Hemorrhage at the Uncommon Location: A Case Report

ABSTRACT

Fahr's disease (FD) is a rare neurologic disorder characterized by the symmetric and bilateral intracerebral calcification in a patient. We describe the case of a 65-year-old woman who presented with gait disturbance, abnormal mentality, and visual field defect. The result of a brain computerized tomography showed spontaneous intracranial hemorrhage in the right parieto-occipital area, and also showed the incidence of symmetric and bilateral intracerebral calcification. Moreover, laboratory studies indicated characteristic hypoparathyroidism. This brings us to understand that additionally, one of her sons also presented with similar intracerebral calcification, and was subsequently diagnosed with FD. Thus, her case was consistent with that of a patient experiencing FD. The patient had hypertension, which we now know might have caused the intracerebral hemorrhage. However, this patient's brain lesions were in uncommon locations for spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage, and the lesions were noted as occurring away from the identified heavily calcified areas. Thus, it seemed that the massive calcification of cerebral vessels in the basal ganglia, the most common site of intracerebral hemorrhage, might have prevented a hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage. Eventually, an intracerebral hemorrhage occurred in an uncommon location in the patient's brain.