Case Report
Paraneoplastic Opsoclonus Myoclonus in a Patient with
Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma
Divine C. Nwafor,
1
Ashley B. Petrone,
2
Joseph M. Collins,
3
and Amelia K. Adcock
4
1
Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA
2
Department of Pathology, Anatomy and Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine, West Virginia University, School of Medicine,
Morgantown, WV, USA
3
Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic Arizona, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
4
Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA
Correspondence should be addressed to Amelia K. Adcock; akadcock@hsc.wvu.edu
Received 18 February 2019; Revised 15 March 2019; Accepted 27 March 2019; Published 16 April 2019
Academic Editor: Isabella Laura Simone
Copyright © 2019 Divine C. Nwafor et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
Opsoclonus myoclonus syndrome (OMS) is an extremely rare neurological syndrome typically afecting as few as 1 in 10,000,000
people annually. OMS is characterized by the presence of involuntary, saccadic eye movements, as well as ataxia, including gait
incoordination, rigidity, and tremor. Te origin of OMS is unclear, but a signifcant percentage of OMS cases are indicative of an
underlying malignancy, most commonly neuroblastoma and small cell lung cancer. Here we describe an adult patient with OMS,
who was ultimately diagnosed with a small ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. To our knowledge, this is the third published
report of an association between OMS and pancreatic malignancy, and the only case where the pancreatic malignancy was detected
prior to metastasis or autopsy at death. Tis case report highlights the importance of careful, aggressive malignancy screening with
OMS, as the pancreatic duct cut-of sign may be overlooked if pancreatic malignancy is not suspected.
1. Introduction
Opsoclonus myoclonus syndrome (OMS) is an extremely
rare autoimmune neurological syndrome typically afecting
as few as 1 in 10,000,000 people annually. Te etiology of
OMS is thought to be paraneoplastic (e.g., malignancies) or
nonparaneoplastic (e.g., idiopathic, parainfectious) in origin
[1–3]. Te clinical presentation of OMS is characterized by
the presence of involuntary and saccadic eye movements,
as well as ataxia, including gait incoordination, rigidity,
and tremor. Te pathogenesis of OMS remains unclear;
however, it has been proposed that it could be the result of
dysfunctional motor neurons, specifcally pontine omnipause
neurons and/or cerebellar Purkinje cells [4]. Twenty to forty
percent of OMS cases in adults and children are indicative
of an underlying malignancy [2, 5, 6]. Te tumors most
frequently associated with OMS in children and adults are
neuroblastoma and small cell lung cancer (SCLC), respec-
tively [7]. We describe an adult patient with OMS, who
was ultimately diagnosed with ductal adenocarcinoma of the
pancreas. To our knowledge, this is the third published report
of an association between OMS and pancreatic malignancy,
and the only case where the pancreatic malignancy was
detected prior to metastasis or autopsy at death [8, 9].
2. Case Presentation
Here we describe, a 72-year-old female with a history of
hypothyroidism, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and 50 pack
years of smoking, who presented to an outside facility with a
30-pound weight loss, severe nausea, emesis, mild imbalance
which graduated to bedbound instability, and involuntary
body “shakes” progressing over 6 months. Initial investi-
gations at an outside facility, including contrast enhanced-
MRI imaging of the entire neuroaxis, EEG, colonoscopy, and
basic hematologic and chemistry panels, were all normal. Te
only initial abnormal fndings were as follows: esophagogas-
troduodenoscopy (EGD) revealed possible gastritis, thyroid
Hindawi
Case Reports in Neurological Medicine
Volume 2019, Article ID 3601026, 3 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/3601026