Papers of the Week

Bilateral symmetric striatopallidal calcinosis with or without deposits in dentate nucleus, thalamus, and white matter is reported in patients ranging from asymptomatic, metabolic, toxic, and genetic autosomal dominant, familial or sporadic forms. Of the connective tissue diseases, it has been reported in very few cases in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, many incorrectly labeled as Fahr syndrome without even having hypoparathyroidism. Here we describe a 30-year-old female patient with neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus manifested at diagnosis with mood disorders and anxiety, and 1-year later develops Lupus headache; Incidentally, an aneurism of the right middle cerebral artery and bilateral and symmetric calcifications of the caudate and lenticular nuclei were noted; this finding is a rarely reported manifestation of neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus. A review of the literature based on this case was carried out in electronic databases. There are approximately 29 patients reported in the literature, with calcifications in the basal ganglia associated with systemic lupus erythematosus occurs almost exclusively in young women (96.5%) with a mean age of 33.36 years (2 months-76 years), with a race predilection for Asians (65.5%). Regarding the neuropsychiatric syndromes defined by the American College of Rheumatology, the most frequently associated are movement disorders; followed by cognitive dysfunction, seizure disorders, mood disorders, cerebrovascular disease, psychosis, and acute confusional state, transverse myelitis, and demyelinating syndrome. The mean duration time of the SLE to detection of the basal ganglia calcification is 7.62 years (3 days-31 years).