VITAMIN A INTOXICATION AS A CAUSE OF PSEUDOTUMOR CEREBRI

Abstract

Three girls aged 14, 15, and 16 years had diplopia, papilledema, and other symptoms suggesting brain tumor. In addition to various individual complaints, each had hypomenorrhea, alopecia, and rhagades or other marked forms of dermatosis. They had been taking, respectively, 200,000; 200,000, and 90,000 units of vitamin A per day. Treatment consisted in stopping the intake of vitamin A; in addition the oldest patient received acetazolamide as a diuretic. The symptoms subsided rapidly, but in the oldest patient slight blurring of the margins of the optic disks were still present six months later. Alopecia, rhagades, nonspecific dermatitis, migratory arthralgia, hepatosplenomegaly, and hypomenorrhea are important in the differential diagnosis between the pseudotumor cerebri of chronic vitamin A intoxication and true intracranial tumor.