ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Schwartz Jampel syndrome is a usually recessive disorder that presents myotonia, skeletal (bone dysplasia) and facial (blepharophimosis) anomalies and low height, which is diagnosed in childhood. We report on the clinical, electromyographical and radiological findings of two siblings affected by the disease and who were diagnosed late, in adulthood. CASE REPORTS: Two siblings, a male aged 39 and a female of 49, the only members of a family of five siblings born to consanguineous parents to be affected, were studied because of deformities in the joints that appeared at the age of nine months and alterations in their gait. Both had a syndromic facies with hypertelorism, micrognathia, blepharospasm, thin mouth, saddle nose and low height. The sister presented lumbar hyperlordosis, dislocation of the kneecaps, clubfeet, fists with radial deviation, bilateral dislocation of the head of the radius and limited pronosupination and flexure tension of the elbow. Deep reflexes were diminished. The male had deformities in both knees and in the right elbow, and was unable to perform pronosupination of the arm or bend the knee. A coxofemoral X ray revealed an epiphysial dysplasia. The magnetoencephalogram showed continuous muscular activity with complex repetitive discharges in the sister s orbicularis oculi and biceps. The brother had a bilateral entrapment of the ulnar nerve in the ulnar canal with a secondary axonal compromise. Magnetic resonance imaging of the encephalon of the patient showed cortical atrophy, hyperintense focal areas in the periventricular white matter and platybasia. CONCLUSIONS: In the adult, myotonic chondrodystrophia evolves with decreased blepharospasm, the presence of structured deformities and entrapments of peripheral nerves.
