Another case study has appeared, this time originating from Japan. This concerns a single subject (33 year old male) who displays enough symptoms to be considered a CLIPPERS sufferer. I'm sure I'm not the only one who reads these things and mentally ticks off the list of symptoms we have in common. This is one of those cases which I don't relate to particularly as I had a different set of symptoms (e.g. I didn't have scanning speech and retained my ability to walk - with difficulty). However CLIPPERS is hard to ring-fence because of the diffuse nature of the disease and I know the symptoms can vary quite a lot both in their type and their intensity. The pattern of lesions in this patient also looks more extensive than I had - compare my scan here with the patient brain in figure 1a - which may explain some of the differences.
The authors are reporting this case for the record without speculating too much. They suggest that CLIPPERS could be a syndrome rather than a disease - this is regularly discussed in the various papers. They also suggest in passing, that the similarities with Multiple Sclerosis mean that CLIPPERS could have something fundamentally in common with it. Here, "could" is the key word, as lots of things "could" be possible but there doesn't seem to be enough evidence (disclaimer: I am not a doctor) to suggest a firm linkage yet.
Read other articles in this series at Living With CLIPPERS.
Living With CLIPPERS by Bill Crum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
