Clinical Description
Neuropathy. Manifestations typically develop between ages five and 25 years; many males are symptomatic by early adolescence [Dubourg et al 2001, Shy et al 2007]. Earlier onset with delayed walking in infancy as well as later onset in the fourth and subsequent decades can occur. In some individuals, manifestations can be extremely mild and go unrecognized by the individual and/or physician. Clinical manifestations can vary, even within the same family.
Although both men and women are affected, manifestations tend to be less severe in women because of X-chromosome inactivation, as a result of which some women may remain asymptomatic [Siskind et al 2011, Jerath et al 2016].
Signs and symptoms are those of progressive peripheral motor and sensory neuropathy including sensory loss, weakness and atrophy of the distal muscles of the upper and lower extremities, and loss of deep tendon reflexes. The typical affected adult has bilateral foot drop, symmetric atrophy of muscles below the knee (stork leg appearance), pes cavus, atrophy of intrinsic hand muscles (especially the thenar muscles of the thumb), and absent tendon reflexes in upper and lower extremities. The dominant hand may be more involved than the non-dominant one [Arthur-Farraj et al 2012]. Proximal muscles usually remain strong.
Mild-to-moderate sensory deficits of position, vibration, and pain/temperature commonly occur in the feet.
Fixed CNS abnormalities can include fixed dysarthria, ataxia, spasticity, hyperreflexia, extensor plantar response, and/or MRI abnormalities in the myelinated tracts of the brain. These have been recently reviewed [Abrams 2019].
Stroke-like episodes are acute self-limited often recurrent episodes of CNS dysfunction. Findings typically include upper motor neuron weakness and dysarthria. Ataxia, respiratory distress, dysphagia, and altered consciousness have also been described. Symptoms last between a few hours and a few weeks. While some episodes appear to occur without provocation [Halbrich et al 2008, Srinivasan et al 2008], most are associated with stressors such as hyperventilation or exertion [Hanemann et al 2003, Taylor et al 2003, Srinivasan et al 2008, Basu et al 2011], re-acclimatization after return from high altitude [Paulson et al 2002, Sagnelli et al 2014], fever [Schelhaas et al 2002, Fusco et al 2010], head trauma [Halbrich et al 2008], or minor infections [Hanemann et al 2003, Anand et al 2010].
MRI changes, seen on both diffusion-weighted and T2-weighted sequences, preferentially involve subcortical white matter and the splenium of the corpus callosum [Paulson et al 2002, Schelhaas et al 2002, Hanemann et al 2003, Halbrich et al 2008, Srinivasan et al 2008, Anand et al 2010, Fusco et al 2010, Rosser et al 2010, Kim et al 2014]. While diffusion-weighted abnormalities tend to resolve within weeks, T2-weighted changes may persist longer. Most of these episodes have been reported in males, typically younger than age 21 years [Al-Mateen et al 2014]; females with stroke like episodes have also been described [Hanemann et al 2003, Kim et al 2014]. In rare instances stroke-like episodes may precede peripheral neuropathy [Sagnelli et al 2014].
Other fixed central nervous system involvement, reported on occasion:
Vocal cord paresis with dysphonia and dysphagia (reported in 4/8 affected members of a single family) [
Chung et al 2005]
Other imaging findings can include:
Other electrophysiologic findings
Most affected individuals show abnormalities in visual, brain stem auditory, and/or somatosensory evoked responses (reviewed in
Abrams & Freidin [2015]).
Nerve biopsy. Light microscopy typically reveals axonal loss with evidence of regeneration. Scattered onion bulbs as well as thinly myelinated fibers, resulting from either regeneration and associated remyelination or segmental demyelination and remyelination, are also seen.
Electron microscopy reveals widened collars of adaxonal Schwann cell cytoplasm and separation of axons from their surrounding myelin sheaths [Senderek et al 1998, Senderek et al 1999, Tabaraud et al 1999, Hahn et al 2001, Vital et al 2001].
Nerve biopsies rarely show nerve hypertrophy or generalized onion bulb formation, findings considered to be typical for demyelinating CMT(e.g., CMT type 1A caused by a duplication of a ~1-MB region of chromosome 17 that includes PMP22).
Note that the widespread availability of molecular genetic testing has rendered nerve biopsy unnecessary for diagnosis unless genetic testing is unrevealing.