A Case of Visual Hypoemotionality Induced by Interferon Alpha-2b Therapy in a Patient With Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

To the Editor: We describe the case of a 41-year-old woman affected by chronic myeloid leukemia, who underwent a standard treatment with Interferon alpha-2b (IFNα2b) 4 months before our observation, with good clinical and hematological response. After the first dose of therapy, she began to report difficulties in memory and concentration and “emotional hyporeactivity.” The patient had no history of pretreatment neurologic or psychiatric disease, and she denied any similar affliction in her family. Neurological examination was normal. Her “emotional hyporeactivity” consisted in lack of vividness and affective coloring of visual stimuli, with preserved emotional responses to nonvisual stimuli, in accord with a diagnosis of Visual Hypoemotionality (VH). Biochemical and immunological examinations on blood and CSF were unremarkable. Standard EEG, visual acuity, visual field, VEP, cranial CT scan, and cerebral MRI (T1, T2, DWI) did not show any abnormalities. A complete neuropsychological assessment showed a selective deficit of visuospatial memory and a mild prosopagnosia (Rey's Complex Figure Delayed Recall: score 5.5, cutoff: ≥15.93; Recognition of Unknown Faces Test: score 36, cutoff ≥41). A 99m ECD-SPECT scan showed a focal hypoperfusion of the right temporo-mesial region (Figure 1). At 1-year follow-up, a complete remission of symptoms was observed, and both technetium-99m ECD-SPECT scan and neuropsychological evaluation were normal.