Reversible MR Findings in Marchiafava-Bignami Disease

Abstract

Marchiafava-Bignami Disease (MBD) is a toxic demyelinating disease often diagnosed in chronic alcoholics. The disease process typically involves the corpus callosum and clinically presents with various manifestations resulting in MBD type A and type B on the basis of clinical condition, extent of callosal involvement and extracallosal involvement at brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and prognosis. The death rate is high. We report a patient affected by MBD type B, who presented an isolated reversible splenial lesion at brain MRI and achieved a favorable recovery.

Figure 1

MRI studies at onset (a-c) and 1-month follow-up (d-f). Sagittal FSE-T2 image (a) demonstrating hyperintense regions in the splenium of the corpus callosum (white arrow). DWI (b) image shows its hyperintense signal (black arrow) and ADC map (c) shows its reduced diffusivity. Corresponding sagittal FSE-T2 image (d) and DWI images (e) showing normal signal in the splenium of the corpus callosum (white arrow head and black arrow head, respectively) where the ADC map (f) shows normalization of water diffusivity.