Search

Pourpre's dorsal T-shaped myelotomy was performed on three paraplegic patients in which medical and electro-physiological procedures proved to be ineffective concerning muscle spasms.The myelotomy led to the elimination of spasms and of muscle hypertonicity in the lower limbs.Biopsies of the rectus femoris muscles were performed bilaterally one year before and two months following myelotomy. The first biopsy revealed fascicular atrophy, with type I fibre preferential atrophy, which is usually found in paraplegic patients.After myelotomy some histological differences were seen: reduction of type II fibre diameter and the presence of target-targetoid fibres and of atrophic dark fibres.There was a difference of fibre pattern type in hyper tonic spastic muscles compared to that seen in spasm relieved by myelotomy.The morphological changes seen after myelotomy are interpreted as denervation changes because of the surgical lesion by the myelotomy on the anterior horn cells.

Report of a study of primary myopathies in children conducted within the framework of our program to evaluate the diagnostic potential of1H NMR in muscular diseases. There are substantial differences in the in vitro1H NMR response of skeletal muscles between normal children and children with congenital non progressive myopathies and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

This paper deals with the possibility of using proton (1H) NMR as a diagnostic tool for discriminating between normal and diseased tissues. As an example, we analyze in vitro the1H NMR response of muscle from patients with neurogenic muscle diseases. It is suggested that there is correlation between the tissue morphology and some details of the proton relaxation processes. Our findings can be of relevance to a clinical application of NMR tomography.

It has been suggested that there may be a correlation between Helicobacter pylori(Hp) infection and precancerous lesions of the stomach. However, histological evaluation of bacterial colonization in chronic atrophic gastritis shows a relatively low prevalence of the microrganism, which does not support the hypothesis. The aim of our study was to investigate the Hp serology in 95 patients with chronic gastritis with antral atrophy with (27 cases) and without (68 cases) intestinal metaplasia, and without Helicobacter-like organisms in antral and corpus biopsy specimens. For all subjects, serum anti-Hp immunoglobulin IgG was identified by a fluorescent immunoenzymatic method (Helori-test; Eurospital), and mucosal atrophy and activity were graded histologically (Sydney System score). The serum Hp-antibody status documented the presence of current bacterial infections in 64 of 95 (67.4%) patients and previous infections in another 17 subjects. In only 14.7% of cases was there no evidence of current or previous infection. These subjects had less severe mucosal atrophy and lower inflammatory scores. In addition, there were no cases of intestinal metaplasia in such subjects. The high prevalence of Hp infection confirms the primary role of the microrganism in the pathogenesis of chronic gastritis with antral atrophy, although the bacterium is no longer present in the advanced stages of such disease. The histological evaluation of Hp colonization following the criteria of the Sydney System appears from our study to underestimate the true prevalence of the infection in the stomach when there is mucosal atrophy.