Weber syndrome – clinical-imaging correlations

Abstract

An 89 years-old female patient was brought in by the family for altered mental status and left-sided motor deficit. Medical history revealed high blood pressure for which the patient was receiving anti-hypertensive treatment. Upon examination, the patient presented altered mental status, dysarthria, dysphagia, left central facial palsy, ataxic tetraparesis with marked paralysis on the left side, bilateral Babinski signs, right-sided ophthalmoplegia with limitation of gaze in all directions, left-sided skew deviation, limited abduction and upgaze movements of the left eye, and bilateral ptosis (complete on the right side and incomplete on the left side). The clinical picture was thus compatible with a vertebrobasilar stroke. A possible diagnosis of Weber syndrome was suggested, given the left-sided hemiparesis and right-sided ophthalmoplegia. Both head CT and brain MRI confirmed this by demonstrating a right-sided thalamo-mesencephalic subacute ischemic stroke. No cardio-embolic source was identified on cardiac assessment. Consequently, the patient was discharged with antiplatelet therapy, statin and anti-hypertensive treatment. We provide a short review on Weber syndrome, emphasizing the correlations between the clinical pictures and imaging findings.