Zentralblatt fur allgemeine Pathologie u. pathologische Anatomie最新文献

Findings recorded from obliterative hepatic endophlebitis are described in this paper and are compared with international literature. They had been obtained from a male twin who had died with clinical symptoms of hepatic failure. Differential diagnosis of liver insufficiency in early childhood is discussed in some detail. Also recorded was obliterative angiitis of intramural blood vessels in the ileum. Systemic vasculitis is postulated, possibly developed on the basis of an immunological reaction. Intra-uterine infection had probably been the most likely cause.

Immunohistochemical investigations were made of 170 tumours of the central nervous system, using anti-Leu-M1, with electron microscopy being used on 22 of them. At least focal Leu-M1 positive reactivity was established from 10 in 24 astrocytomas, four in 22 oligodendrogliomas, and 9 in 15 ependymomas. Unambiguous Leu-M1 positivity was recorded from 54% of Grade I gliomas and 20% of Grade II gliomas. Other malignant primary tumours of neuroepithelial origin as well as all meningiomas and neurinomas proved to be Leu-M1 negative. However, severe immunopositivity was exhibited in all cases by reactive cerebral tissue adjacent to tumours. Three of four carcinoma metastases were Leu-M1 positive. Investigations, using electron microscopy, have clearly shown that MMA positivity in reactive brain is associated primarily with extracellular space and with plasma membranes of gliocytes. No products of immune reaction were identified, on the other hand, not even ultrastructurally, from neoplastically dedifferentiated cells of anaplastic neuroepithelial tumours. This is likely to suggest that neoplastically transformed gliocytes are no longer capable of expressing lacto-N-fucopentose III. It has proved helpful in distinguishing between the benign and malignant nature of a tumour. More observations along those lines might contribute to more knowledge on dedifferentiation of gliocytes. Also, in electron microscopy, MMA positivity of carcinomas proved to be associated with glycocalyceal material.

Postmortem examinations were conducted on 7,952 cases with acute inflammatory processes of respiratory organs, among them 452 adults, between 1949 and 1988. Bacteria had been responsible for 87.5%, of these pneumonia cases, including Klebsiella for 15.3%, Pseudomonas for 13.5%, staphylococci for 9.9%, pneumococci for 4%, streptococci for 3.9% and Haemophilus for 0.7%. Other bacterial species of lower pathogenicity were recorded from 24.4% of all individuals who had died with pneumonia and mixed bacterial flora from another 29.3%. Pneumococcal and streptococcal forms of pneumonia were predominant in untreated patients. Staphylococci and gram-negative bacteria were primarily recorded from inflammatory foci, following penicillin treatment. Macroscopic and microscopic peculiarities are discussed in greater detail, together with aspects relating to the pathogenesis of forms of pneumonia caused by different pathogens.

Investigations were conducted on topographically identical tissue samples from the sciatic and sural nerves. 22 autopsies on individuals free of any severe disorder provided the material for this study (stillborn babies and deaths of unnatural causes). The material was selected with the view to having all age groups of human life represented. preferably two or more subjects of each decade. The overall cross-section and the cross-section of each bundle were planimetrically measured, using magnified photographs of celloidin sections, 30 micron in thickness. Depending on age, the sum of the cross-sections of all bundles was found to percentually decrease by about one fifth in all nerves relative to the overall cross-section. Alterations in the sural nerve and in the smaller portion of the sciatic nerve (N. peronaeus communis) were characterised by linear regression of measurements with a negative correlation, but non-linear regression could be estimated for the larger portion (N. tibialis). Semi-thin sections of methacrylate-embedded material were used to ascertain the numerical density of Schwann cell nuclei on all cases and to study fibre calibre distribution on three selected subjects. The averaged numerical density of Schwann cell nuclei decreased by about 80% from birth to the age of five years and varied between the second and fifth decades within a relatively small range described by a hyperbolic regression. No unambiguous correlation was found to exist beyond the fifth decade.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Ultrastructural analysis was made of the ventral hippocampus in 5 Wistar rats experimentally subjected to chronic ethanol treatment (daily doses of 5 cm3 of 40% ethanol for 3 months), with a view to identifying morphological features resembling hippocampal damage in human alcoholics. Our results indicated damage of nerve cells in the investigated area, accompanied by glial reaction. The nerve cells were impaired by energetic depletion of the mitochondrial system which, in our opinion, led to pictures analogous to ischemic cell affection and, finally, to cell death. Also, features of premature involution were noted in both pyramidal and granular cells. There were signs of glial hypertrophy, glial cell divisions, lipopigment accumulation, and glial adhesion of affected neurons. We concluded that severe chronic ethanol intoxication affected first of all the mitochondrial apparatus of neurons, leading to more advanced lesion of cells and to pronounced glial reaction.

Neurofibromatosis was recorded from 30 in 82,249 postmortem cases (0.036%) at the Medical Academy of Erfurt, Institute of Pathological Anatomy, between June 1, 1945 and December 31, 1986, among them 13 cases of classical peripheral neurofibromatosis generalisata Recklinghausen (NgR) and 17 with CNS involvement. These had been 10 males and 7 females who had died at an age from 8 to 77 years (average age and death being 39 years). CNS lesions were preferentially localised in periventricular sections of the third and fourth ventricles and the cerebral aquaeduct, with diffuse gliosis being recorded from 5 cases. Typical bilateral neurofibromatosis of the acoustic nerve was established from three males aged 19, 26 and 30 years. Spinal neurinoma or neurofibroma, meningioma, an astrocytoma of the cervical spinal cord, and leptomeningeal sarcomatosis were also recorded. Additional skeletal abnormalities were exhibited by four cases. Interest is generally growing in CNS involvement in neurofibromatosis due to the possibility of intravital diagnosis by computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRI) and because of possible surgical therapy. Recent studies in molecular genetics, on the other hand, have shown classical NgR to be caused by a lesion to chromosome 17, while bilateral neurofibromatosis of the acoustic nerve was found to be based on a genetic defect to the long arm of chromosome 22.

Formation of amyloid within peripheral nerves, resulting in amyloid-related neuropathies, may occur when myeloma-associated amyloid (AL) is deposited in an immune-related neuropathy or in familial amyloid polyneuropathy where prealbumin/transthyretin variants are marked by AF amyloid deposition. Refined histochemical and recent immunohistochemical techniques identify the correct type of amyloid and thus the nosologically precise form of amyloid-related neuropathy. Neuropathy is an inherent thought not obligate clinical and morphological component in two of the three systemic amyloidoses. Multiple causative factors in adult forms of neuropathy render a search for amyloid mandatory whenever respective biopsied nerve specimens are examined.

Reported in this paper is a case of a fetus delivered in the 24th week of pregnancy whose intracranial space was found to be almost totally filled up by a choroid plexus papilloma. Co-expression of vimentin and cytokeratin 8, 18 of the epithelium was immunocytochemically observed, as had been also described in normal fetal choroid plexus.

A legal dispute broke out in Eupen near Aachen, 1873, and was to be protracted through 14 years. The case was about a twin monster that had died at or after birth. A physician in Eupen, at the same time public servant in the local government, was aware of Virchow's interest in collecting cases. He obtained the two interconnected dead bodies from the parents and promised the latter a sizeable amount of money, obviously assuming that Virchow had at his disposal funds for compensation, as had been the case with Rudolphi and Müller, some time before. The twin monster was sent to Berlin, but no money showed up. The parents sought legal counsel with their local police commissioner who also held the post of local attorney. The attorney opened an investigation, and the district commissioner got involved. The physician was officially reproved by the Aachen government for having trespassed his authority in obtaining the twin monster. Two questions were now cropping up in Eupen: Did Virchow pay money to the local physician? If so, why did the latter fail to pass it on to the parents? This might be a case for civil action. The police commissioner promised the parents to see Virchow in Berlin and to ask him for clarification. The father, when interrogated, insisted that one of the children had definitely lived for a short time after birth. This would entail a penal case on the physician and a charge of law-breaking. But this could be averted. The police commissioner managed to go to Berlin not before 1887. Hoping to have a legal claim to embezzled money even after 14 years, he intended to call on Virchow for questioning. Yet, he missed him and left behind a letter with a request for information on those past developments.

Up to six arteries traverse from the interventricular septum to the M. papillaris magnus in the trabecula septomarginalis (moderator band) of swine and pygmy goat. Musculo-elastic intimal thickenings, many of them quite extensive, are recordable from along the entire length of all these intramural coronary arteries which are between 50 microns and 300 microns in diameter. The conclusion may be drawn from the results of morphometric analysis that coronary arteries undergo enlargement in response to increased intimal thickening and that such enlargement does not lead to narrowing of the lumen. Peculiarities in wall structure of the arteries in the trabecula septomarginalis are interpreted as adaptive processes of the vascular wall to the extraordinary stress on those vessels.