The investigation comprises 41 children with intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH). The CT-findings were divided into 4 groups, according to Papile. A CT and clinical follow-up study was performed on the survivors. The grade of IVH correlated with the rate of mortality and with neurological deficits. It is demonstrated in 3 cases that the CT-scan is only part of a prognostic aspect which is remarkable influenced by clinical events.
Eighteen EEG long-term recordings were carried out in patients with generalized fits of different etiologies using a mobile 4-channel monitoring system in order to observe individual patterns of epileptic activity. In patients with idiopathic tonic-clonic seizures (A) no connection of frequency of spike-wave bursts with the sleep-wakefulness cycle was observed. In patients suffering from fits of organic nature (B) a peak of paroxysms was obtained in the hours before sleep onset, whereas in patients with absence seizures (C) a maximum was found in the morning hours after awakening. In patients with idiopathic fits (tonic-clonic and absence seizures) the minimum of bursts was observed in REM sleep, whereas stage 0 (tonic-clonic) and stage 1 (absence) were most prone to discharges. Patients with secondary generalized epilepsy had most spike-wave bursts in deep sleep. In the absence seizure group the transitional periods within the light non-REM-sleep stages were more susceptible to paroxysms than the retained stages. In patients with idiopathic grand mal seizures, the highest frequency of paroxysmal discharges was found during time spent awake in the night when retained over a longer period of time. The group including cases with attacks of organic nature did not show any preference to shifting times or preservation episodes of sleep stages.
Considerable advances in neonatal intensive care succeeded in improving the prognosis of prematurity. In the years 1973-1980, 24 preterm infants with gestational age between 28 and 37 weeks received 13 ventriculo-peritoneal and 11 ventriculo-atrial shunts. Shunt infections occurred in 29 % and resulted in severe further complications. For control, repeated CT scans were compared with results of neurological examinations. There was only partial correlation of CT findings and psycho-neurological development. The peculiarity of hydrocephalus in pre-term infants is due to their immaturity, which in itself is responsible for a number of coexisting clinical problems. If additional operations are necessary, timing must be considered with extreme care. After the shunting procedure, other operations should be postponed in order to avoid the possibility of infection. The surgical procedure, quality of anaesthesia, maintenance of constant body temperature, and short surgical time are deciding factors for the infants' postoperative state and further outcome.
The recent advances in the surgery of intramedullary tumors are due to the strategy of a total removal by microsurgical techniques and the early diagnosis by MRT. 84 patients with intramedullary tumors with a long-term follow-up up of more than 20 years were retrospectively analysed so that subgroups e.g. macroscopic versus microscopic, palliative procedures versus whether or not new technology like the ultrasonic aspirator and the CO2-Laser were used were included.
A 38-year-old male Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) developed progressive hind leg paresis. A computed tomography scan of the vertebral column revealed soft tissue type densities within vertebral bones.At necropsy infiltrating tumor masses were found in the vertebral bodies, protruding into the spinal canal and compressing the spinal cord. Microscopically neoplastic plasma cells infiltrated the vertebral bodies and adjacent soft tissues. Immunohistochemically, tumor cells tested positive for B cell markers (CD38, CD79alpha), kappa, and lambda light chains, while vimentin, GFAP, S100, and CD138 were not expressed. The tumor was classified as multiple myeloma on the basis of radiographic, pathological, and immunohistochemical findings.This first systematic case description on multiple myeloma in a non-human primate revealed many similarities with the disease in humans and the immunohistochemical tools proved suitable for their use in the orangutan.
The prevalence of contaminant microbial DNA in ancient bone samples represents the principal limiting factor for palaeogenomic studies, as it may comprise more than 99% of DNA molecules obtained. Efforts to exclude or reduce this contaminant fraction have been numerous but also variable in their success. Here, we present a simple but highly effective method to increase the relative proportion of endogenous molecules obtained from ancient bones. Using computed tomography (CT) scanning, we identify the densest region of a bone as optimal for sampling. This approach accurately identifies the densest internal regions of petrous bones, which are known to be a source of high-purity ancient DNA. For ancient long bones, CT scans reveal a high-density outermost layer, which has been routinely removed and discarded prior to DNA extraction. For almost all long bones investigated, we find that targeted sampling of this outermost layer provides an increase in endogenous DNA content over that obtained from softer, trabecular bone. This targeted sampling can produce as much as 50-fold increase in the proportion of endogenous DNA, providing a directly proportional reduction in sequencing costs for shotgun sequencing experiments. The observed increases in endogenous DNA proportion are not associated with any reduction in absolute endogenous molecule recovery. Although sampling the outermost layer can result in higher levels of human contamination, some bones were found to have more contamination associated with the internal bone structures. Our method is highly consistent, reproducible and applicable across a wide range of bone types, ages and species. We predict that this discovery will greatly extend the potential to study ancient populations and species in the genomics era.
Progressive ataxia, particularly of the hind limbs, developed in a paretic female juvenile captive North American river otter (Lontra canadensis). Severe bilaterally symmetrical axonal degeneration in the medulla oblongata (nucleus gracilis and nucleus cuneatus) and multiple scattered spheroids in the region of the pons were detected microscopically. This is the first description of ataxia associated with axonal degeneration in otters.
The CT investigations of 156 children with partial epilepsies are analyzed. Pathological findings appeared in 39%, particularly atrophic changes and porencephalic lesions. According to the seizure type their incidence was higher in children who had secondary generalized seizures (46 %) than in children with isolated partial seizures (30%) or complex partial seizures with or without secondary generalization (16%). Furthermore, pathological findings occurred more frequently in children with perinatal etiology (37%) than in familial (26%) or idiopathic cases (10%). A symptomatic epilepsy due to a cerebral tumor or a vascular lesion was found in 10%. There was a high correlation between neurodevelopmental disturbances and abnormal CT findings, however also 17 neurological normal children had pathological CT findings.
