Essential thrombocythemia: Rare cause of chorea

Abstract

Essential thrombocythemia (ET) is a clonal myeloproliferative disorder (MPD), characterized predominantly by a markedly elevated platelet count without known cause. It is rare hematological disorder. In ET clinical picture is dominated by a predisposition to vascular occlusive events and hemorrhages. Headache, transient ischemic attack, stroke, visual disturbances and light headedness are some of the neurological manifestations of ET. Here, we describe a 55 year-old female who presented to us with generalized chorea. On evaluation, she was found to have thrombocytosis. After ruling out the secondary causes of thrombocytosis and other MPD we confirmed diagnosis of ET in her by bone marrow studies. Polycythemia vera (PV) another MPD closely related to ET may be present with generalized chorea. There are few case reports of PV presenting as chorea in the literature, but none with ET. We report the first case of ET presenting as generalized chorea.

Keywords

• Chorea
• essential thrombocythemia
• polycythemia vera