1. Introduction
In the last several years, multiple case reports have appeared in the
medical literature regarding nitrous oxide (N2O)-induced myelopathy, a
condition mimicking the myelopathy seen in spontaneous vitamin B12
deficiency both clinically and radiographically e.g. [1–9]. The appeal of
these reports seems to be that this association, between nitrous oxide
exposure and B12 deficiency myelopathy, comes as a novel and
surprising fact to many physicians. The substance of many of these
reports is to stress that this association exists.
However, this fact is not novel, for example, to the clinical
biochemist, since N2O exposure has been widely used in the past two
decades as the most effective way to produce animal models of B12
deficiency [10–12]. Nonetheless, clinical cases, when encountered,
provide the opportunity to review the complex biochemistry of vitamin
B12, to address a variety of issues regarding the pathogenesis of the
clinical syndromes of B12 deficiency, and to highlight some of the still
unanswered questions regarding the precise mechanisms by which B12
deficiency leads to neurologic damage, and how this damage is
potentiated by N2O exposure.
Vitamin B12 deficiency in man leads to two main conditions [13]: a
macrocytic anemia with megaloblasts in the bone marrow (hence often
referred to as a megaloblastic anemia), and a myelinolysis most
pronounced in the spinal cord, wherein it is known as subacute
combined degeneration (SCD). This condition affects the posterior
columns and the corticospinal tracts, and is characterized by swelling of
the myelin sheaths and a patchy myelopathic spongy vacuolation of the
affected regions of the cord [2,12].
Despite the passage of over five decades since the structure of
vitamin B12 was first elucidated by Dorothy Hodgkin and her team at
Harvard University, there remains considerable controversy regarding
the pathogenesis of SCD.
Thus, we would like to discuss a recent case of a young man who
came to our hospital with B12 deficiency and myelopathy secondary to
recreational nitrous oxide abuse over the course of several months.
The clinical details of this case have been previously reported by some
of our neurology colleagues [14]. Our interest in the case, though, is as
a springboard for an in-depth discussion of the clinical chemistry of
vitamin B12, including some important new data on the possible
pathogenetic mechanisms underlying B12 deficiency myelopathy—
data which, by and large, have not yet made its way into the clinical
literature. These data suggest that the “classical” mechanisms usually
presented in clinical case reports (centered on the role of B12 as an
enzyme cofactor) are incomplete, and that the pathogenesis of
vitamin B12 deficiency may instead be mediated by its effect on
various cytokines and growth factors.