Effect of chronic dantrolene sodium administration on striatal muscles of the rat. A morphometric study.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J De Reuck.
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In this prospective neuropathologic study, Wernicke's encephalopathy appears to be the most frequent intracranial complication of treated patients with tumours of the lymphoid-hemopoietic systems. The highest incidence of this encephalopathy is found in elderly and in patients with a prolonged survival. The chronic form of Wernicke's encephalopathy is most commonly observed.
Animal experiments have suggested that diquat is less toxic than the more widely used paraquat. In this paper, nine previously reported cases of diquat intoxication are reviewed, together with the description of our personal observations in two additional patients. These two patients, like four other patients described in the literature, died from complications involving the gastrointestinal tract, brain and kidneys. Thus, diquat intoxication is apparently not as innocent as was originally thought. In this paper, special attention has been given to the major clinical differences between diquat and paraquat intoxication. In contrast with the latter, severe diquat intoxication induces gastrointestinal fluid sequestration and is associated with cerebral hemorrhagic lesions and a higher incidence of severe acute renal failure. Despite an asymptomatic clinical interval of up to 48 hours after ingestion, hemoperfusion should be started as soon as possible to prevent toxic levels of diquat in tissue.
In a series of 312 postmortem confirmed cerebral infarcts the clinical history was reviewed and the pattern of the strokes compared to the involved vascular territory. A high incidence of silent strokes was observed, and reversible neurological deficits occurred mostly in infarcts in the vertebrobasilar circulation, in particular in those in the supply area of the posterior cerebral and posterior inferior cerebellar arteries.
The clinicopathological findings of a 50-year-old man, who developed cervicothoracic syringomyelia at the age of 25 are presented. He was given radiation therapy at the age of 33. At the age of 57 he developed a foramen jugulare syndrome on the left, caused by a low grade leiomyosarcoma. Etiologically, the most attractive hypothesis appears to be that the tumour was induced by radiation therapy administered 24 years previously.
Cytophotometric DNA determination was performed on 11 surgically resected oligodendroglial tumours and on oligodendroglial cells in two normal brains. The results are compared with the histological findings, the mitotic index and the degree of clinical malignancy. In this type of glioma there is no correlation between the DNA pattern and the histological appearances and the mitotic index. It is concluded that an aneuploid DNA distribution curve corresponds to a bad prognosis, whilst a diploid DNA curve does not allow prediction of the degree of clinical malignancy.
We studied the clinicopathologic findings in four hypertensive patients with multiple leukomalacia, demyelinated lesions, and lacunar state. Only one patient had clinical evidence of dementia. The periventricular watershed infarcts were attributed to transient episodes of cardiac failure in brains with a compromised circulation in the territory of the deep perforating branches. These observations suggest that Binswanger encephalopathy does not differ from multi-infarct dementia.
In ten female rats electrophysiological recordings and subsequent histological and histochemical examinations were performed at different time intervals and in different parts of the gastrocnemius muscle, following tenotomy and following combined tenotomy and neurotomy. Repetitive motor action potentials were more easily evoked during the period and at the sites of occurrence, of target fibres in tenotomized gastrocnemius muscle with an intact nerve supply. Both phenomena, the electrophysiological as well as the morphological one, were strongly inhibited by the simultaneous neurotomy. This study suggested that the target phenomenon is a morphological expression of an increased irritability of the muscle, following tenotomy.
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The effect of 2,4 dichlorophenoxyacetate and of dantrolene sodium on the occurrence of target fibers in tenotomized rat gastrocnemius muscle was studied. Neither of the drugs influenced the appearance of target fibers or its inhibition by simultaneous neurotomy.
A case, which is clinically characterized by a subacute vertebrobasilar syndrome, is presented. The necropsy reveals multiple infarcts in brainstem, cerebellum and left cerebral hemisphere, due to tumoural emboli of a non-detected primary tumour. It is postulated that the latter has to originate in the lungs in order to produce this unique type of cerebral arterial embolism.
The DNA content is determined by the cytophotometric method in 16 astroglial tumours, classified according to the degree of clinical malignancy. The values are compared to those found in non-tumoural astrocytes. This method appears to be more reliable in assessment of the degree of malignancy of the tumour in biopsy material than histological criteria and the mitotic index. It is also shown to be of great value in cases where the biopsy is taken at the margin of the tumour and in which malignant histological features are missing.
7 brains out of a series of 124 necropsies of treated leukemic patients show a communicating hydrocephalus, without invasion of the central nervous system by the malignant blood cells. In 4 cases it is proven that the hydrocephalus is due to obstruction of the liquor drainage at the level of the arachnoidal villi and dural sinuses, by the leukemic invasion of these structures. It is shown that, even in case of preventive brain irradiation and intrathecal-administered cytotoxic drugs, these structures remain areas, in which the leukemic cells are difficult to destroy.
Reye's syndrome or encephalopathy with fatty infiltration of the liver occurs mainly in childhood and to a lesser degree in adult age. This report concerns a rare adult case of this syndrome in Europe. The different diagnostic steps are described, with special emphasis on the enzymatic disturbances of the Krebs-Henseleit cycle and on the morphological criteria needed to confirm the diagnosis.
The gastrocnemius muscles of 3 groups of 10 rats, sacrified 5, 7, and 12 days respectively, following tenotomy, were submitted to different types of fixation, fixative and embedding. The occurrence of target fibres is shown not to be an artefact due to the histological procedures. Further examination demonstrates that the target phenomenon occurs in the shortest fibres on the medial side of both heads of the gastrocnemius muscle and that it consists mainly of a disarrangement of the contractile elements of the muscle fibres. This study argues that this phenomenon represents some kind of myotonic state of a pathological muscle.
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A right gastrocnemius muscle biopsy of a 13-month-old floppy male infant, which appeared at a more advanced age to suffer from an infantile spinal muscular atrophy, showed unusual histochemical changes: the chequer-board distribution was replaced by three groups of muscle fibers with a same mean narrow diameter of 12.5 micrometer. The smallest groups could easily be recognized as type I and type IIB fibers, while the largest group, involving more than 75% of the whole biopsy, revealed an intermediate hybrid fiber population, which would be classified as type I, if based on their phosphorylase and myofibrillar ATPase activities alone. The pathogenesis of this unusual finding is discussed.
The sequence of development of the target phenomenon in tenotomized gastrocnemius muscle was studied: the presence of target fibres was preceded by the occurrence of contraction bands and of "moth eaten" appearance of the fibres. This phenomenon was far more pronounced and occurred earlier in type II than in type I fibres. This target phenomenon and the contraction artefacts could be inhibited in the tenotomized muscles by simultaneous neurotomy or immobilization of the muscle with a plaster cast. Delayed denervation inhibited also the target phenomenon, if performed less than 5 days after the tenotomy. These series of experiments seem to indicate that the target phenomenon occurs in more irritable muscle fibres and that muscular activity is needed for its development.