Effects of senescence and citral on neuronal vacuolar degeneration in rat pelvic ganglia.

A significant part of the morbidity in elderly men involves pelvic organs and their autonomic neural regulation. Environmental stimuli also impair the structure and function of pelvic organs. One of these factors is citral, a widely-used cosmetic fragrance constituent, which causes severe prostatic hyperplasia in rats.

Giant axonal neuropathy with predominant central nervous system manifestations.

The authors describe a 25-year-old woman with giant axonal neuropathy (GAN) and severe CNS involvement. She had been admitted to hospital with generalized seizures, and had gait disturbances followed by progressive mental deterioration since childhood. Neurological examination revealed mental retardation, scanning speech, cerebellar dysfunction, pyramidal signs, mainly in the lower extremities, and peripheral sensory neuropathy.

The prognostic significance of glial fibrillary acidic protein staining in medulloblastoma.

Histologic and immunohistochemical properties of 53 medulloblastomas were analyzed with regard to clinical features and survival rate. No correlation was found between survival rate and histologic features of the tumor, such as desmoplastic reaction, number of mitoses, hemorrhages, necrosis, endothelial proliferation, glomerular arrangement, calcifications, rosettes, or oligodendroglial cells. However 82% of the patients with positive glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) staining in numerous tumor cells survived more than 5 years; only 30% survived that long if their tumor cells were GFAP negative (P = 0.

Immunocytochemistry of epithelial markers in citral-induced prostate hyperplasia in rats.

Immunocytochemical characterization of several epithelial markers using the PAP technique was analyzed during different stages of induced prostatic hyperplasia in rats. Intact adolescent rats (42 days old) were treated with citral (3,7 dimethyl-2,6 octadienal) for 10, 30 and 100 days and their ventral prostate compared to untreated, matched-age animals. Among the epithelial markers studied the prostatic specific acid phosphatase was present in hyperplastic prostates of rats.

Familial myoedema, muscular hypertrophy and stiffness.

A father and son with muscular hypertrophy, stiffness and myoedema are described. The local swelling after tapping the muscle was not accompanied by electrical activity. Histological and histochemical studies of muscle biopsy showed no abnormalities.