Transcortical sensory aphasia due to a left frontal subcortical haemorrhage

A case of transcortical sensory aphasia caused by a cerebral haemorrhage in the left frontal lobe is presented. A 72-year-old right-handed woman was a dmitted to the hospital, with a history of acute onset of speech disturbanc e and headache. On initial assessment, her spontaneous speech was fluent. S he had no difficulty initiating speech, articulated normally, and did not e xhibit logorrhea. Her ability co repeat phonemes and short sentences (5-6 w ords) was fully preserved, however she had severe difficulty with visual re cognition of words, and with aural comprehension ar the word level, althoug h she was able to read words aloud. Computed tomography and magnetic resona nce imaging showed cerebral haemorrhage in the left frontal lobe, involving the superior and middle frontal gyrus. Single photon emission CT revealed a wider area of low perfusion over the entire left frontal lobe, including the superior. middle and inferior frontal gyrus. The aphasia symptoms, main ly poor comprehension, disappeared quickly several weeks alter the event. T his may have been due to a reduction in the size of the haematoma and a res olution of the oedema around the haematoma. Clinically, the transcortical s ensory aphasia in this case was indistinguishable from that caused by damag e to thr posterior language areas. Further case reports of transcortical se nsory aphasia associated with ii frontal lobe lesions would help to confirm whether a relatively rapid recovery is characteristic in cases such as thi s.