Brissaud-Sicard syndrome

Last revised by Rohit Sharma on 10 Mar 2018

Brissaud-Sicard syndrome is a very rare pontine stroke syndrome that involves the anterolateral and inferior pons.

Classically, the syndrome presents as ipsilateral facial cramps and contralateral hemiparesis 1-3.

It has been postulated that the syndrome is caused by damage to the pons involving the corticospinal tract and the CN VII nucleus or nerve root 2,3. It can be caused by a posterior circulation ischemic stroke, as well as other lesions such as neoplasm (e.g. brainstem glioma) 1-3.

Lesions are in the pons with imaging characteristics depending on underlying cause.

The syndrome is named after Édouard Brissaud (1852-1909) and Jean Athanase Sicard (1872-1929), French physicians, who described the syndrome in 1908 in patients with infarcts secondary to neurosyphilis 2,4. However, it was first described over fifty years earlier by Adolphe-Marie Gubler (1821-1879), another French physician, in 1856 2,5.

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