Pigment variant of neuronal ceroid-lipofuscinosis

A 6-year-old girl had progressive ataxia, and visual disturbances resulting in blindness. She died in her sleep at age 22 years. She shared with her sister and paternal relatives bilateral pes cavus deformities and impaired deep-tendon reflexes which suggested Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. Her sister, who also had both polyneuropathy and a progressive central nervous system (CNS) disease, did not have pigmentary retinopathy. At autopsy, the patient was found to have neuronal ceroid-lipofuscinosis (NCL) marked by intraneuronal accumulation of autofluorescent granular lipopigments in ballooned perikarya and conspicuous extraneuronal pigmentation of subcortical grey matter, but without axonal s…