Visual agnosia and prosopagnosia secondary to melanoma metástases: Case report

• Main Author: Frota,Norberto Anízio Ferreira
• Publication Date: 2007
• Other Authors: Pinto,Lécio Figueira, Porto,Claudia Sellitto, Aguia,Paulo Henrique Pires de, Castro,Luiz Henrique Martins, Caramelli,Paulo
• Format: Report
• Language: eng
• Source: Dementia & Neuropsychologia
• Download full: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1980-57642007000100104
• topic: prosopagnosia; visual agnosia; metastasis; melanoma.

Abstract The association of visual agnosia and prosopagnosia with cerebral metastasis is very rare. The presence of symmetric and bilateral cerebral metastases of melanoma is also uncommon. We report the case of a 34 year-old man who was admitted to hospital with seizures and a three-month history of headache, with blurred vision during the past month. A previous history of melanoma resection was obtained. CT of the skull showed bilateral heterogeneous hypodense lesions in the occipito-temporal regions, with a ring pattern of contrast enhancement. Surgical resection of both metastatic lesions was performed after which the patient developed visual agnosia and prosopagnosia. On follow-up, he showed partial recovery of visual agnosia, while prosopagnosia was still evident. The relevance of this case is the rare presentation of metastatic malignant melanoma affecting homologous occipito-temporal areas associated with prosopagnosia and associative visual agnosia.