What is cadisil?

Should health conscious people have themselves tested for it in order
to ascertain whether they have it and/or to establish a baseline for
measuring neurological loss?

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 12 Feb 2006 16:22 PST

Are you referring to CADASIL ("cerebral autosomal dominant
arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leucoencephalopathy")?

http://www.sgul.ac.uk/depts/cn/cad/CADASIL5webversion2.html

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Clarification of Question by gollum9701-ga on 19 Feb 2006 18:20 PST

Yes.

Cadasil essentially boils down to a genetic predistribution to
vascular dementia essentially from multiple small strokes that are not
of the traditional stroke causes (clots migrating to brain or disease
of the arteries of the traditional "fatty plaques" variety, or amyloid
infiltrative vascular disease that makes people prone to bleeding
strokes).  There is no directed treatment based on this diagnosis and
it is essentially a diagnosis for education sake for family members to
know the risk of passing it along as it is a genetically inherited
disorder.  Hence, there is no indication for screening the general
population for it.  If a parent carried the diagnosis it would be
worthwhile to check to know the risk of passing it on to subsequent
generations.

Having the test for the genetic abnormality would not establish a
neurologic baseline.  Physical exams and potentially brain imaging to
make the diagnosis of infarcts and infarct related dementia are the
best way of establishing both baseline functionality and disease
extent as well as interval changes.

FYI - I used several electronic journals and the medical review site
uptodate.com that are available through our hospital but might not be
available to you.  These are broad scope/general population responses.
If you have further questions or want to know specific indications
related to your own medical history you should direct them toward a
physician / neurologist familiar with your medical issues.