P437 Bright tongue sign is prior to the oral phase dysphagia of ALS patients

• Published in: Neuromuscular disorders : NMD 2023-10, Vol.33, p.S187-S187
• Main Authors: Kurashige, T., Dodo, Y., Katsumata, R., Murao, T., Kanaya, Y., Sugiura, T., Ohshita, T.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0960-8966; 1873-2364
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nmd.2023.07.475

The hyper-intensity of tongue on T1 weighted MRI imaging is called as bright tongue sign, which might be caused by fat replacement of tongue. Though bright tongue sign is considered as one of radiological characteristics of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), it is unclear whether bright tongue sign is associated with dysphagia. We retrospectively examined clinical records of 62 consecutive patients suspected as ALS. We defined bright tongue sign as the hyper-intensity which filled more than a half of tongue of tongue on mid-sagittal T1 weighted MRI imaging. Among 62 consecutive patients, 45 patients were diagnosed as ALS and 17 patients were not. Among ALS patients, 14 of 17 bulbar type, 5 of 15 frail-arm type, and 6 of 14 frail-leg patients presented bright tongue sign. 5 of 17 non-ALS patients also showed bright tongue sign. 22 ALS patients with bright tongue sign (88%) had dysphagia though 5 ALS patients without bright tongue sign (25%) (p