RESUMEN
Two patients presented with abdominal pain, recurrent vomiting, weight loss, and constipation secondary to intestinal pseudo-obstruction. Both patients had symptoms and signs of myasthenia gravis, acetylcholine receptor antibodies, and thymoma. In one patient inflammatory cell infiltrates and occasional degenerate neurons were found in the myenteric plexus. The gastrointestinal symptoms resolved during treatment with pyridostigmine. The close temporal relationship between the onset of the gastrointestinal symptoms and the detection of myasthenia gravis and thymoma suggests that intestinal pseudo-obstruction can be a paraneoplastic syndrome associated with thymoma.
Asunto(s)
Seudoobstrucción Intestinal/patología , Miastenia Gravis/patología , Timoma/patología , Anciano , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana EdadRESUMEN
Pattern visual evoked potentials (PVEPs) were recorded from 111 patients classified as having possible, probable or definite multiple sclerosis. Patients were stimulated with a checkerboard pattern using high and low luminances in order to test the hypothesis that an attenuated pattern luminance increases the detection rate of PVEP abnormalities. With increasing certainty of diagnosis, there was a concomitant increase in the incidence of PVEP abnormalities. However, there was no evidence that stimulating with a lower luminance pattern enhanced the sensitivity of the test. The same findings were also apparent when the patient data was analyzed according to the presence or absence of a history of optic neuritis or other visual symptoms. It is concluded that, within the luminance limits used in this study, the role of varied luminance in detecting demyelinating lesions in the optic nerves using the PVEP is minimal, although there was some limited evidence that a high level of luminance may be more appropriate than a low level.