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This article describes a case of osteopathia striata with cranial sclerosis. The patient also has multiple sclerosis. The symptomatology includes a right sided conduction deafness and a left maxillar nerve deficit, which were both attributed to the bone disorder. The authors review the literature of this rare genetic syndrome and pay special attention to the neurological manifestations. These mainly consist of hearing loss, mental subnormality and occasionally the involvement of other cranial nerves. The bone scan in their patient shows hyperactivity in the left skull base region. This finding provides further evidence that, at least in some instances, the bone disorder has a progressive course.

Late appearing asthma in two over 50 year-old patients is reported. After an isolated evolution of 3 and 10 years, asthma was complicated by necrotizing angiitis. After a review of the various aeti...

SummaryThe authors relate a few cases showing the interest of the radiological investigation during the spontaneous evolution and during the treatment of laryngeal cancer.

SummaryThe authors had the opportunity to apply different techniques of encephalography in the investigation of cerebral arachnoiditis, supra- and infratentorial tumour cases.They illustrate de value of fractionated encephalography by the report of some observations. These concern unspecific optochiasmatic and cerebello-pon-tine arachnoiditis, adhesive tuberculous meningitis cases and also cerebellar haemangioblastoma, pontine astrocytoma and acoustic neurinoma cases.

The involvement of arterial smooth muscle cells in the development of atherogenic lesions following de-endothelialization and platelet-vessel wall interaction was described in detail by Ross et al. (1977). Bourgain & Six (1974) described a method for local de-endothelialization over a small area in a branch of the mesenteric artery of the male white Wistar rat. The vessel wall reaction to the endothelial cell loss was investigated in detail by Potvliege & Bourgain (1976). The reactive pattern following de-endothelialization includes both a marked hypertrophy of the smooth muscle cells, and, if induced at the site of bifurcation, is further accompanied by migration of smooth muscle cells into the subintimal layer (Potvliege & Bourgain 1980). Administration of a fat- and cholesteral-rich diet markedly increased these phenomena (Potvliege & Bourgain 1982).

Suloctidil, a potent anti-platelet drug, was found to have no adverse effect on the morphological integrity of blood platelets in man and rat.

Secondary amyloidosis is currently more readily recognised as a very frequent complication of the use of cellulose membranes during hemodialysis. It usually appears after 10 years of dialysis and is highly destructive.

It has already been shown that radiographic contrast media (RCM) can produce modifications of the thyroid metabolism. It is generally assumed that thyroid hormone secretion remains constant whatever the fluctuations in iodine supply. Hyperthyroidism when induced by RCM administration is accompanied by changes of the levels of circulating thyroid hormones [2].

Several years ago, Kefalides and Winzler [1] utilized the hydrogen bond-splitting action of concentrated urea solution for solubilization of the glomerular basement membrane in vitro . In search for a rapid and reliable method of inducing proteinuria in vivo , we tested the action of concentrated urea in acute experiments in the dog.

A prospective study of the diagnostic yield of ultrasound (US) and ERCP was made on a continuous series of 424 patients. Technical failures were slightly more frequent with US (11%) than with ERCP (8%), while US proved more accurate than ERCP in the diagnosis of focal hepatic disease--94% of correct diagnosis versus 41% (n = 17). In diffuse hepatic disease (n = 63) the accuracy of both methods was the same--87% of correct diagnosis with US, 83% with ERCP. US had better performances (91%), while ERCP was more accurate in the diagnosis of common duct lithiasis or tumour (98% for ERCP, 36% for US). Although ERCP has a better diagnostic yield for pancreatic diseases (92% to 100% of correct diagnosis according to the lesions) associate complications, such as pseudo-cysts, abscess formation and extravasations are better demonstrated by US (95% of correct diagnosis versus 73%). The two methods thus prove to be complementary.

The necropsy reports and clinical observations of 44 cases of glomerulonephritis occurring in patients over 55 years old were reviewed. Two-thirds of the patients died from a rapidly progressive renal disease with focal necrotizing and fibrosing glomerular lesions; half of these exhibited a granulomatous splenic trabeculitis; an associated vasculitis was found in only a minority of these cases. Another important group consisted of cases of acute diffuse glomerulonephritis which, as a rule, occurred in association with a major infection. There were only four cases of chronic sclerosing glomerulonephritis.

Arteries taken from 1 to 3 days after local thrombosis had been induced by the passage of a weak electric current followed by the topical administration of ADP were studied by electronmicroscopy. The characteristic changes observed during this period included total disappearance of pre-existing thrombi, rapid reconstitution of the endothelium and important hypertrophy of smooth muscle cells in the media. Thrombocytopenia induced by the administration of antiplatelet serum produced no alterations in untreated arteries. When it was coupled to thrombus induction, healing of injured endothelial and smooth muscle cells was grossly impaired, hypertrophy of the media was absent and fibrin infiltrated the arterial wall at the site of thrombus induction. These results bring support to the view that blood platelets play an important role in the induction of the regeneration response of injured arterial cells.

The influence on pituitary cytology of propylthiouracil (PTU) and estradiol benzoate (EB) administered singly and in combination was studied by electron microscopy in adult female rats. PTU alone induced striking changes in the morphology of thyrotroph cells, which were all transformed into typical thyroidectomy cells, characterized by enormously dilated ergastoplasmic sacs; the acidophils were degranulated and some of them took the appearance of relatively quiescent prolactin cells rather than degranulated somatotrophs. EB alone caused no definite changes in the morphology of thyrotroph cells; its essential effect was the development of a large number of prolactin cells. When both treatments were combined, thyroidectomy cells were found, existing side by side with untransformed thyrotrophs and exhibiting less dilated ergastoplasmic sacs than after PTU alone; prolactin cells were present in great number and showed a more developed ergastoplasm than after EB alone. Thyroid weight and height of the follicular cells were not changed by EB given singly; they were both increased under the influence of PTU; thyroid weight but not mean height of the follicular cells was slightly less increased when EB was added to PTU. It is tentatively concluded that estrogen may have a dual action on the thyro-pituitary axis: on one hand, a depressing influence on thyrotroph cells and on the other hand a direct stimulatory effect on the thyroid gland.