3-Year-Old Girl With Rare 'Laughter Disorder' Undergoes Life-Saving Surgery

A 3-year-old girl suffering from a rare disorder characterized by sudden bouts of laughter has undergone life-saving surgery.

The girl, identified with the first name Grace, from the Indian city of Hyderabad, was hospitalized after her parents noticed she was "suffering" from frequent episodes of uncontrolled laughing, reported News 18. The incidents would occur without any reason or cause.

Though the girl was taken to several hospitals, none of the doctors who met her could identify her condition. Grace's parents finally consulted the doctors at Kamineni Hospital, who diagnosed her with gelastic seizures, APN News said in a report.

Gelastic seizures, which affect one in 200,000 children, are most often caused by a single tumor in the hypothalamus and may arise any time during a patient's lifetime. However, they are most commonly found to occur before kids turn 4.

They often begin as sudden outbursts of laughter for no apparent reason and may even sound like coughing, barking, crying or cooing. The laughter typically does not sound delightful but has a more flat and humorless quality to it.

As for Grace, further tests proved she had a sub-centimeter lesion in the hypothalamus. She was immediately put on anti-seizure medication. Though she used to get seizures only once a month before, the frequency began to increase to five to six times a day and lasted up to a minute.

Grace underwent imaging (MRI brain plain and contrast) in a high-end 3T MRI. Results showed a large lesion extending from the hypothalamus with compression on major vessels and nerves, which explained her squint on the left eye.

Surgery was done afterward.

"Child parents have been explained about the condition, rarity of disease requirement of surgery and risk involved. Parents were explained about other modalities of treatment. After thorough counseling, the child was taken for craniotomy and excision of the tumor. Post-surgery the frequency of seizures has significantly come down," Dr. Ramesh, a neurosurgeon, said.

Recently, an infant who was born with a rare birth defect underwent life-saving surgery. The child had a condition called bilateral nasal encephalocele, wherein the brain of the baby was not fully closed through temporal bones.