Multimodal evoked potential abnormalities in patients with Wilson's disease

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the involvement of the following functional systems: somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP), visual evoked potentials (VEP), and event related potentials (ERP), in twenty patients with Wilson's disease (WD). VEP and SSEP abnormalities were discovered in S patients respectively (40%), whereas ERP were either absent or, in the case of 10 patients (50%), had significantly prolonged P-300 latencies. Taken together, at least one evoked potential abnormality was discovered in 17 patients (85%]. Only in 3 patients (15%), involving either the isolated hepatic type of disease or short illness duration of the neurological type, were normal evoked potential findings observed. Our findings suggest the usefulness of multimodal evoked potential abnormalities in the evaluation of subclinical manifestations in patients with WD.