Cortical involvement in Marchiafava-Bignami disease.

Abstract

Marchiafava-Bignami disease (MBD), a rare complication of chronic alcoholism, is characterized by primary demyelination of the corpus callosum. We report two cases of MBD in which fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) and diffusion-weighted imaging studies revealed symmetrical hyperintense lesions in the cerebral cortex (particularly in the lateral-frontal regions) in addition to the callosal lesions, which suggests an association of diffuse cortical lesions such as Morel's laminar sclerosis with MBD.