Introduction:

Etiological diagnosis of Sporadic Ataxia of Adult Onset (SAAO) is a clinical challenge because its possible causes are multiple. There are no studies of SAAO in our country.

Objective:

To describe the clinical, imaging and etiological characteristics of patients with SAAO.

Methods:

Prospective observational study of patients with SAAO who consulted at Hospital de Clínicas de Montevideo from April 2010 to March 2014. A protocolized clinical-paraclinical evaluation was performed to reach the etiological diagnosis. Results: Thirty-six patients were included. In 20 of them an acquired definite etiology was demonstrated. The most frequent were alcoholic and paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration . The majority of cases in which a treatment of this etiology was instituted resulted in a cessation of the progression or improvement of symptoms. Discussion and Conclusions: The protocolized study of patients with SAAO achieves the etiological diagnosis in more than 50% of the cases. Still, 44% of patients remained without proven etiology, mainly due to the inability to access genetic studies. The factors that are most associated with finding a proven acquired etiology were: rapid progression, pure vermis syndrome and frank asymmetry of symptoms.

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