The course of the traumatising force in acceleration head injury: CT evidence.

Since brain damage in closed head injury of acceleration-deceleration type depends on the site of impact and on the course of the traumatising force, a reconstruction of these was attempted using CT. The study included 45 standard CT studies of adults with closed acceleration-deceleration head injuries. We selected 32 patients exclusively on the basis of CT findings of soft tissue contusion, skull fractures and cerebral contusions (coup and/or contrecoup, as well as other parenchymal lesions), while in the remaining 13 patients clinical findings were also used.

CT analysis of missile head injury.

Between August 1991 and December 1992, CT was performed on 154 patients who had suffered missile head injury during the war in the Republic of Croatia. In 54% CT was performed 1-24 h after injury, and in 27% follow-up CT was also obtained. The wounds were penetrating, tangential or perforating (45%, 34% and 21%, respectively).

DNA amplification by polymerase chain reaction from brain tissues embedded in paraffin.

A method which enables analysis of DNA from archival paraffin embedded normal and malignant brain tissue is described. The demonstration of a 317-bp long beta-actin DNA sequence by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to identify which fixation procedure, deparaffinization time and DNA extraction procedure would give the best results. Tissue specimens 1-39 years old were included in the experiments.

Mitochondrial cardiomyopathy and scapuloperoneal spinal muscular atrophy in a child.

A 14-year old boy was admitted for signs of heart failure and scapuloperoneal muscle weakness. He fulfilled the clinical, functional and diagnostic criteria for dilated cardiomyopathy. There was also a moderate increase in pulmonary vascular resistance.

Patterns of lesions of corpus callosum in inner cerebral trauma visualized by computed tomography.

Computed tomographic analysis of lesions of the corpus callosum in 13 patients with "inner cerebral trauma" showed significant congruence of linear translation of acceleration and the topographic distribution of such lesions. This congruence permits computed tomography to be used to reconstruct the course of linear translation and the site of the main blow, which can be important for forensic use. The findings of even a small lesion in the corpus callosum indicates the need for further investigation of other structures which are usually involved in inner cerebral trauma, such as the hippocampus and brain stem.