Amiodarone-induced neuromyopathy: three cases and a review of the literature.

Objectives: To better characterize the clinical, electrodiagnostic, and pathologic aspects of amiodarone-induced neuromyopathy.

Methods: We reviewed medical records, performed electrodiagnostic studies, and examined histopathologic specimens of muscle and nerve in three patients with amiodarone-induced neuromuscular toxicity, as well as summarized the relevant literature.

Results: Two patients had a slightly asymmetric, mixed, but primarily demyelinating sensorimotor polyneuropathy.

Rapidly progressive, acute polyradiculopathies and cranial neuropathies resulting from leptomeningeal nasal-type NK cell lymphoma.

Lymphomas may cause polyradiculopathies by several pathogenic mechanisms. However, such a presentation of a nasal-type NK (natural killer) cell lymphoma is rare. We report a previously healthy man who developed acute, axon-loss radiculopathies and cranial neuropathies.

Cryptosporidium, enterocytozoon, and cyclospora infections in pediatric and adult patients with diarrhea in Tanzania.

Cryptosporidiosis, microsporidiosis, and cyclosporiasis were studied in four groups of Tanzanian inpatients: adults with AIDS-associated diarrhea, children with chronic diarrhea (of whom 23 of 59 were positive [+] for human immunodeficiency virus [HIV]), children with acute diarrhea (of whom 15 of 55 were HIV+), and HIV control children without diarrhea. Cryptosporidium was identified in specimens from 6/86 adults, 5/59 children with chronic diarrhea (3/5, HIV+), 7/55 children with acute diarrhea (0/7, HIV+), and 0/20 control children. Among children with acute diarrhea, 7/7 with cryptosporidiosis were malnourished, compared with 10/48 without cryptosporidiosis (P < .

Comparison of PCR, culture, and histopathology for diagnosis of tuberculous pericarditis.

Nucleic acid amplification techniques for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) are rapidly being developed. Scant work, however, has focused on pericardial TB. Using cryopreserved specimens from a prior study of pericarditis, we compared PCR to culture and histopathology for the diagnosis of tuberculous pericarditis in 36 specimens of pericardial fluid and 19 specimens of pericardial tissue from 20 patients.