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Kleine-Levin syndrome

**Kleine-Levin syndrome**
*Classification & external resources*
ICD-10	G47.8
ICD-9	327.13
OMIM	148840
DiseasesDB	29520
MeSH	D017593

Kleine-Levin Syndrome, or KLS, is a rare disorder characterized by the need for excessive amounts of sleep (hypersomnia), (e.g. up to 20 hours a day); excessive food intake (compulsive hyperphagia); and an abnormally uninhibited sexual drive. Adolescent males are the predominant victims of the disorder.

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Presentation

Individual sufferers may often become irritable, lethargic, and/or apathetic. KLS patients may appear disoriented and report hallucinations. Symptoms are cyclical; with days to weeks (even up to months) of suffering interspersed by weeks or months (even up to years) symptom-free. Although resolution of the disorder may occur for some in later life, this is not universal.

Causes

While some researchers speculate of a hereditary predisposition; others believe the condition may be the result of an autoimmune disorder.^[1] Both proposals need not be mutually exclusive with the result being a malfunction of the portion of the brain that helps to regulate functions such as sleep, appetite, and body temperature (hypothalamus).

Similarities between KLS and Klüver-Bucy syndrome (another rare condition characterized by hyperphagia, hypersexuality, and emotional blunting) may warrant further attention.

Treatment

There is no definitive treatment for Kleine-Levin syndrome. Stimulants, including amphetamines, methylphenidate, imipramine and modafinil, administered orally, are used to treat sleepiness. Because of similarities between Kleine-Levin syndrome and certain mood disorders, lithium and carbamazepine may be prescribed. Responses to treatment have often been limited. This disorder needs to be differentiated from cyclic re-occurrence of sleepiness during the premenstrual period in teenage girls that may be controlled with hormonal contraception. ^[2]

Eponym

It is named for Willi Kleine and Max Levin.^[3]^[4]^[5]

References

^ http://med.stanford.edu/school/Psychiatry/narcolepsy/KLS.html
^ http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/kleine_levin/kleine_levin.htm
^ synd/1398 at Who Named It
^ W. Kleine. Periodische Schlafsucht. Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie, 1925, 57: 285-320.
^ M. Levin. Periodic somnolence and morbid hunger: A new syndrome. Brain, Oxford, 1936, 59: 494-504.

v • d • e Nervous system pathology, primarily CNS (G00-G47, 320-349)
Inflammatory diseases of the CNS	Meningitis (Arachnoiditis) - Encephalitis - Myelitis - Encephalomyelitis (Acute disseminated) - Tropical spastic paraparesis
Systemic atrophies primarily affecting the CNS	Huntington's disease - Spinocerebellar ataxia (Friedreich's ataxia, Ataxia telangiectasia, Hereditary spastic paraplegia) Spinal muscular atrophy: Werdnig-Hoffman disease - Kugelberg-Welander disease - Fazio Londe syndrome - MND (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Progressive muscular atrophy (PMA), Progressive bulbar, Pseudobulbar, PLS)
Extrapyramidal and movement disorders	Parkinson's disease - Neuroleptic malignant syndrome - Postencephalitic parkinsonism - Pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration - Progressive supranuclear palsy - Striatonigral degeneration - Dystonia (Spasmodic torticollis, Meige's syndrome, Blepharospasm) - Essential tremor - Myoclonus - Chorea (Choreoathetosis) - Restless legs syndrome - Stiff person syndrome
Other degenerative / demyelinating diseases	Alzheimer's disease - Pick's disease - Alpers' disease - Dementia with Lewy bodies - Leigh's disease - Multiple sclerosis - Devic's disease - Central pontine myelinolysis - Transverse myelitis
Seizure/epilepsy	Focal (Simple partial, Complex partial) - Generalised (Tonic-clonic, Absence, Atonic, Benign familial neonatal) - Lennox-Gastaut - West - Epilepsia partialis continua - Status epilepticus (Complex partial status epilepticus)
Headache	Migraine (Familial hemiplegic) - Cluster - Vascular - Tension
Vascular	Transient ischemic attack (Amaurosis fugax, Transient global amnesia) - Cerebrovascular disease (MCA, ACA, PCA, Foville's syndrome, Millard-Gubler syndrome, Lateral medullary syndrome, Weber's syndrome, Lacunar stroke)
Sleep disorders	Insomnia - Hypersomnia - Sleep apnea (Ondine's curse) - Narcolepsy - Cataplexy - Kleine-Levin syndrome - Circadian rhythm sleep disorder - Delayed sleep phase syndrome - Advanced sleep phase syndrome
Other	Hydrocephalus (Normal pressure) - Idiopathic intracranial hypertension - Encephalopathy - Brain herniation - Cerebral edema - Reye's syndrome - Syringomyelia - Syringobulbia - Spinal cord compression

Category: Sleep disorders

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Kleine-Levin_syndrome". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.