부산대학교 도서관

It has been well known that patients with SMON often complain of cold sensations in distal parts of four extremities, and most of the patients complain of severe cold sensations and/or paresthesias (shibire sensation) only in lower limbs.However, it is not obvious whether the cold sensations are caused by autonomic or sensory nervous disturbances because of a lack of objective measurement. In order to elucidate these questions, we examined skin temperature recovery rate (STRR) to cold water in upper and lower extremities of SMON patients by using thermography. The results were as follows;(1) In the upper limbs, STRRs were significantly lower (p<0.01) in SMON patients than age-matched controls.(2) In the lower limbs, STRRs showed no significant difference between the controls and the patients with SMON, in spite of complaining of severe cold sensation.(3) It is suggested that the cold sensations of lower limbs in patients with SMON seem to be caused by sensory rather than autonomic nervous disturbances due to myeloneuropathy of the disease.