Negative Autopsy Research Articles

Safety of Intrathecal Steroids in Multiple Sclerosis-Reply

In Reply. —Between 1960 and 1962, six studies performed on more than 5000 patients reported sanguine results from the intrathecal use of methylprednisolone acetate (Depo-Medrol). 1 Numerous regimens were tried. Sehgal and Gardner 2 advocated it after treating 3000 patients for failed disk arachnoiditis, cluster headache, pseudotumor cerebri, plexitis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and multiple sclerosis. Only minor side effects were mentioned and the steroid was reported uniformly helpful. These authors mentioned six negative autopsy reports in a two-sentence description, and no details were given. Boines 3 simultaneously tested the compound on more than 2000 patients with multiple sclerosis and reported improvement from 75% to 90%, regardless of the stage of the disease; spasticity was stated to have been relieved, even in patients with chronic disease. Between 1964 and 1969, three authors 4-6 attempted to treat spasticity in multiple sclerosis and other diseases by a variety of regimens, and their results were poor.

Oxytocic activities in human pituitary gland on sudden death (author's transl)

Oxytocin has been known to be released by females during delivery or lactation, but it has physiological significance for males which, as might well be supposed, has not yet been made clear. We can conjecture that it has some use in wide scope homeostasis.Some sudden unexpected natural deaths are essentially negatie with regard to classical autopsy findings and the true causes of such deaths can not be found even by employing both gross and microscopic examinations and toxicologic analyses. In the best of medico legal institutions the rate of negative autopsies ranges from 2 to 10 per cent of the total cases examined.Typical diseases for which autopsy findings are negative are the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and the Sudden Manhood Death Syndrome (SMDS). These are included as sudden unexpected natural deaths where the patients are outwardly healthy, the past histories, of patients are not predictive of death and the convincing causes of the deaths can not be found out by means of the conventional postmorten examinations. Attention, however, has not been paid to SMDS in Europe and in the U.S. as has been done in Japan.In sudden unexpected natural deaths, there is little doubt that certain biochemical disturbances may be operating. However, these have not been identified as yet under the current status of our knowledge, but physiological and biochemical study promise to be fruitful areas of investigation in the future.To examine how oxytocin corresponds to SMDS, I examined 151 cases of various sudden death (male 116, female 35), in the age range of from 20 to 81 and compared the weight of each human pituitary gland, knewing that female pituitary glands are heavier than those of males. But we must also investigate if there is any relation with cerebral swelling in agony.With the Chicken Depressor Method, I examined oxytocic activities of 53 adult pituitary glands (male 36, female 17) and got the following results.1) No significant difference of oxytocic activity in the human pituitary glands was discerned between males (7.42±0.86U/gland) and females (7.53±1.03U/gland).2) The oxytocic activity is not determined by age, it is not decreased even at the advanced age of over seventy.3) The oxytocic activity decreases only shortly 34 hours after postmortem.4) From pituitary gland removed after death, I could not find if oxytocin has diurnal variation of biological rhythm, but this does not prove that it has not so long as the correct method of quantity of level in the blood is not completed.5) The most prominent character found in the measurement of oxytocic activity using human pituitary glands, is that the amount of oxytocin release differs according to causes of sudden death. I noticed a significant difference between SMDS and the group of cardiac arrests by negative autopsy which has usually been classified into the former in Japan.When the cause is SMDS, the oxytocic acitivity measures 3.99 ±0.60 U/gland, while it measures 10.33±1.20 U/gland when the casuse is cardiac arrest. The low level of oxytocic activity at SMDS closely resembles that of the group of brain death (4.03 ± 1.34 U/gland).6) So two assumptions can be drawn. One is oxytocin from pituitary gland release is more for SMDS than cardiac arrest. The other is that low level oxytocic activity may be causes by the low storage unable to keep up the amount released in the pituitary gland by the amount synthesized at hypothalamus, as the amount of oxytocin stored in the pituitary gland being balanced between it is the amount synthesized and released.

A simplified method for examining the conducting tissues of the heart.

A simplified method of obtaining and processing blocks from the heart for examination of the cardiac conducting tissue is described. The value of this type of procedure is discussed in relation to the apparently negative autopsy.

Untersuchungen �ber das Reizleitungssystem des Herzens in einem gerichtsmedizinischen Obduktionsgut

Sudden, unexpected deaths with negative autopsy findings and negative supplementary examinations are in all probability due to heart failure. Through systematical examinations of the conducting system of the heart in a number of these cases the author has examined whether a morphological explanation of the deaths might be found in these structures. A report is given of 3 cases in which changes in the conduction system are regarded as pathological and are supposed to be the provoking cause of sudden heart failure. It should be emphasized that the connection between the anatomical changes and the pathophysiological conditions is difficult to prove and that both normal-anatomical variations and changes due to age must be taken into consideration, so that a quite safe evaluation of the examination findings requires comprehensive experience.

Comparative Pathogenicity in Ovis aries of Homologous and Heterologous Strains of Haemonchus (Nematoda: Trichostrongylidae) from Domestic and Wild Sheep

Comparative Pathogenicity in Ovis aries of Homologous and Heterologous Strains of Haemonchus (Nematoda: Trichostrongylidae) from Domestic and Wild Sheep

High level feeding of surface active agents to chicks

1. 1. Eight surfactants with varying polyoxyethylene chain lengths were fed as ration supplements at levels of 0.1, 1.0, and 2.0% to cockerel chicks up to 10 weeks of age. 2. 2. None produced a significant degree of growth stimulation at any of the levels tested in a standard broiler ration. 3. 3. Two of the surfactants (Tween 60 and Myrj 45) failed to stimulate growth or produce aby evidence of increased intestinal absorption when added at a 2.0% level to the standard ration modified in caloric value by the addition of fat. 4. 4. Satisfactory growth patterns, absence of diarrhea, no mortality, and negative autopsy examinations indicated that the surfactants at the concentrations tested were innocuous for cockerel chicks up to 10 weeks of age.

On a diastolic regurgitation murmur heard near and at the apical region of the heart in uremia with negative autopsy findings

On a diastolic regurgitation murmur heard near and at the apical region of the heart in uremia with negative autopsy findings