Zentralblatt fur allgemeine Pathologie u. pathologische Anatomie最新文献

Visiomanual morphometric analysis of peripheral nerve fibres has proved to be error-laden and inadequate. An automatic interactive programme was, therefore, developed for microscopic image analysis and feature extraction. Contours of myelin sheaths were properly identifiable, but an interactive programme component was found to be required to measure the remainder of two to 5% of fibres. Image analysis is shown to generate descriptive statistical features.

An account is given in this publication of the activities of Robert Friedrich Froriep (1804-1861), Prosector at Charité Berlin. He headed the Prosector's Department from 1833 through 1846. Froriep had come to Berlin in 1831 with intentions to do research, primarily on cholera with which the city had been afflicted in those years. When the position of a "Provisional Prosector" of Charité became vacant, after withdrawal of Philipp Phoebus, autumn 1832, the officials of the Hospital Affairs Curatory decided to continue the provisional arrangement, and five candidates applied for the office. Froriep was accepted primarily for two reasons: He had just completed service as an extraordinary professor at the Berlin Faculty of Medicine, and he was capable of producing evidence to the double-track education desired for the job, anatomy and scientific drawing. The Prosector's office was a low-salary side job. Therefore, to ensure his own livelihood, he went into two additional occupations, teaching of anatomic drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts and running of a private clinic. Froriep did extremely well in firmly establishing the Prosector's Department by enhancement of its scope and enlargement of its collection of pathologic-anatomic specimens. He failed, on the other hand, in his attempts to establish pathological anatomy as a subject in its own right at the Berlin Faculty of Medicine. That failure together with insecurity regarding the Prosector's office and position in the hierarchic system of Charité, compounded by protracted disputes between him and Johannes Müller on the Prosector's collection of specimens were causes for Froriep's aggravating frustration towards the late thirties. He also failed in trying to stabilize his scientific and financial positions by accepting directorship of a surgical department. The totality of problems in Berlin and illness of his father in Weimar prompted him to move to Weimar, in spring 1846, to take over as a manager of the Frorieps' family enterprise "Landes-Industrie-Comptoir", after the King of Prussia had bestowed upon him the title of a Privy Councillor of Medicine.

Reported in this paper are results obtained from morphological investigations of 200 fetal abortions which had occurred in the fourth to sixth months of pregnancy. They were spontaneous abortions and abortions induced primarily for fetal indications (31 cases). Causes are subdivided in this report by placental, fetal, and maternal factors. Fetal causes accounted for 18.5% of all cases (most of them fetal malformations, induced abortions included). Maternal causes accounted for 7.5%, among them edema-proteinuria-hypertension (EPH) gestosis and premature rupture of the amnion. No unambiguous clinical or morphological findings were established as causes in 36 cases, i.e. 18%. The majority of all causes, 55.5% was related to placental factors, among them impaired maturation of the placenta in 14.5%, disorders in maternal circulation in 17%, and inflammatory alterations in 23.5%. Early disorders in placentation accounted for a conspicuously high number of after-birth findings (complex early impairment of placental maturation in 28.6%), and so did maternal circulatory disorders, including retroplacental hemorrhage (55.2%), as well as decidual and membranous inflammations (43.4%).

Studies were conducted into 100 consecutive subjects (autopsy material), 53 men and 43 women between 31 and 70 years old, who had died a natural death. The HUDSON-procedure was used for histopathological analysis of the cardiac conducting system (CCS). About 48 microscopic slides of each subject, including sinus node (SN) tissue, were inspected by 4 pathologists in a blind study. The findings were classified by 3 different groups according to histopathological data of the SN, viz. changes and distribution of P and T cells, stroma, artery, and innervation of SN. The 3 major epicardial branches of coronary arteries were prepared for morphometric studies by WHO standards. A digitizer coupled to a microcomputer LTEL (Cuba, IBM-compatible) was used for quantitative evaluation of atherosclerotic lesions (AL), and all data were subsequently processed on the same computer, using a statistical commercial package (Number Cruncher Statistical System) for results. An atherometric system was used and proved to be a properly standardized methodology, suitable to characterize AL in any vascular sector or group of patients. The most remarkable results were as follows: Three-group classification was useful in estimating the association between pathomorphological data of SN and coronary atherosclerosis. The atherometric system proved to be a powerful tool to study and characterize atherosclerotic lesions in coronary arteries.

Systemic secondary amyloidosis was a post-mortem finding recorded from 24% of patients with classical chronic polyarthritis. In 80 to 100% of all cases, amyloidosis was present in heart, thyroid gland, kidneys, adrenal gland, pancreas, spleen, and gastro-intestinal canal. It was recordable, in 50 to 70% of all cases, from liver, aorta, lungs, and lymph nodes. Nerves, muscles, skin, and synovial membrane were less often affected (10 to 40% of all cases). No amyloidosis was recorded at all from the brain. Amyloid depositions differed greatly in intensity by organs. The most massive deposits were found in the gastrointestinal tract, kidneys, adrenal glands, thyroid gland, and spleen. Amyloid depositions were moderate in heart, pancreas, lungs, and liver. They were extremely low in lymph nodes, muscles, nerves, synovial membrane, and skin. The author assumes amyloid deposition to be associated with increase in arterial or venous concentrations of circulating amyloid precursors. Frequency and intensity of amyloid depositions in different organs may be linked to blood supply to the latter. The higher the minute volume of a given organ, the more strongly pronounced is the amyloidosis in it. In the context of amyloidogenesis, consideration should be given, as well, to locally delimited factors, such as organ motility.

The following four basic histochemical reactions were developed by Gomori (1904-1957): 1. Silver impregnation of reticular fibres (1937); 2. Metal salt principle for detection of hydrolytic enzyme activity (1939); 3. Silver-methenamine reaction (1946); 4. Aldehyde fuchsin reaction (1950). These reactions and their modifications have assumed growing importance to expansion of knowledge, primarily on orthological and pathobiological problems.

Four fibrolamellar liver carcinomas were surgically removed and were postoperatively examined. Three patients are alive roughly three years from surgery, and there are no signs of imminent recurrence, while the fourth case was diagnosed only two months back. The carcinomas had developed in non-cirrhotic livers which also produced negative responses to serological tests for hepatitis B. In flow cytometry, DNA indices were indicative of diploidy in two cases and aneuploidy in the other two. The highest DNA index value was recorded from the smallest tumour which could be assigned to the category of "minute HCC". No correlation was found to exist either between age, sex, and DNA index. Positive CEA reaction was immunohistochemically recorded from few tumour cells, whereas negative AFP responses were exhibited by all four tumours. Appearance of AAT in tumour cells was detected in three cases. High degree of differentiation, similarity between tumour and liver cells, and oncocytoid nature of cells were revealed by optical light and electron microscopy. This high degree of differentiation was additionally confirmed by two factors: glucose-6-phosphatase activity was preserved in all four tumours, adenosinetriphosphatase activity was histochemically detectable from certain points of the tumour cell membrane. Gamma-glutamyl-transpeptidase activity, too, was very strongly pronounced in all tumour cells, which, however, cannot be interpreted as a sign of differentiation. Membrane-bordered "dense-core" granules were visible in few tumour cells in two cases. Intensive granular serotonin reactions were immunohistochemically recorded from the majority of tumour cells in the same cases. Our histochemical and ultrastructural parameters have produced clear-cut evidence to the hepatocyte nature of FLC cells. Yet, the presence of secretory granules and positive serotonin reaction might possibly support the assumption that the FLC originates from those pluripotent cells of the liver which may develop in two directions, depending on the individual case, to become either hepatocytes or neurosecretory cells.

Classification of disorders in the peripheral nervous system has been a controversially disputed subject. A brief account, therefore, is given of basic definitions and main groups of mononeuropathies and polyneuropathies. The most common types of mononeuropathies as well as hereditary and acquired polyneuropathies are listed in four tables. Particular attention is given to toxic neuropathies.

Gastric stump carcinoma with widely disseminated metastases and solitary coecal adenoma were recorded by postmortem investigation of a man who had died at the age of 69. The gastric carcinoma had spread metastases into the adenoma. This is the fourth case carcase of metastasis to a colonic polyp so far described in the literature.

Described in this paper are morphological and morphometric alterations that occurred to the remaining testicles in patients who had undergone chemotherapy or radiotherapy for malignant testicular tumours, with findings, on average, being recorded 4.5 years after treatment. Qualitative histological investigations of testicular tissue exhibited differentiated characteristics, with radiotherapy resulting in significantly stronger phenomena. Epithelial height was clearly reduced in conjunction with increase in wall thickness, especially after radiotherapy. Tubular lumens, in the wake of radiotherapy, were more often filled with hyalin than after chemotherapy. Unambiguous evidence was produced to impairment of fertility in response to both chemotherapy and radiotherapy.