Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0026838 (spasticity)
 6,471 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Clinical, neuropathological, and biochemical studies are reported in two children with the AB-variant of GM2-gangliosidosis. One patient had become symptomatic by 1--1.5 years, initially showing cerebellar signs, and then progressive psychomotor retardation, with hypotonia, spasticity, dementia, and macular cherry red spots, until death at the age of 4.5 years. The second patient showed an earlier onset of retardation and a more rapidly progressive course. At postmortem, the brains were of normal or near normal weights and displayed grossly only mild cerebral cortical and cerebellar atrophy, and mild pallor or attenuation of the white matter. Neuronal storage was widespread throughout the CNS, and both neurons and glia contained a variety of abnormal, membranous inclusions. Visceral organs were not involved. Ganglioside sialic acid was increased several fold in gray matter, with GM2 the predominant ganglioside species. N-acetyl-beta-glucosaminidase activities in serum, leukocytes, fibroblasts, and postmortem gray matter, assayed with an artificial, fluorogenic substrate, were normal, as were activities of other lysosomal hydrolases.
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PMID:The AB-variant of GM2-gangliosidosis. Clinical, biochemical, and pathological studies of two patients. 625 24

A 74-year-old woman with corticobasal degeneration (CBD) had a 9-year history of progressive loss of strength and rigidity of her right hand and then arm, followed by speech difficulties, dyskinesia, rigidity, spasticity and weakness of the ipsilateral lower limb, ultimately also involving the opposite side. She later developed supranuclear gaze palsy. Her memory remained intact during most of the duration of her disease. Laboratory tests and anti-Parkinsonian medications were not helpful. At autopsy, frontal lobe atrophy, discoloration of putamen (Pt) and pallor of substantia nigra (Sn) were observed. Neuronal loss and gliosis were extensive in motor cortex and milder in frontal cortex, abruptly ending at the central sulcus and junction of cingulate gyrus. "Achromatic" neurons were present. Neuronal loss and gliosis were seen in Pt and Sn and corticobasal inclusions in Sn. Numerous Gallyas/tau-positive, Bielschowsky/ubiquitin-negative coil, sickle, or coma-shaped tangles and thread-like processes were found in affected cortex, Pt and Sn. Some of the tangles were in neurons, but most occurred in astroglia, and their processes. The presence of Gallyas/tau-positive glia in CBD may have the same diagnostic significance as in progressive supranuclear palsy, analogous to the argyrophilic ubiquinated inclusions in oligodendroglia in multisystem atrophy. We suggest that in CBD: (1) cytoskeletal protein metabolism in neurons and glia can simultaneously be perturbed in certain neurodegenerative diseases, and (2) the astrocytosis in CBD may not be simply a reactive process but an integral part of the disease.
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PMID:Unusual case of corticobasal degeneration with tau/Gallyas-positive neuronal and glial tangles. 787 9

Twenty infants aged 2 weeks to 3 months with the diagnosis of bleeding disorder secondary to low prothrombin complex level were studied. Sixty children of the control group were matched to the cases by age +/- 2 weeks, sex and race. The ratio of boys to girls was 2.3:1. The median, mean, and range of age of the cases and controls were 43.5 days, 43.7 days, 21-73 days and 43.5 days, 46.8 days, 26-28 days respectively. Most of them were pale with a mean hematocrit of 23.55%. The partial thromboplastin time and prothrombin time were markedly prolonged. The means of vitamin K dependent coagulation factors II, VII, IX and X were 1.10%, 5.87%, 2.86%, and 4.47% of adult activity, respectively. The clinical manifestations related to the bleeding of the cases were drowsiness and convulsion (95%), pallor (85%), and apparent bleeding (10%). The sites of the bleeding were demonstrated in the cranial cavity (95%), gastrointestinal tract and oral cavity (15%), and skin (5%). Nineteen patients with intracranial hemorrhage had bleeding in the subdural space (79%), intracerebral (42%), intraventricular (32%), and subarachnoid space (5.2%). The mortality rate and permanent brain damage occurred in 10% and 45%, respectively. Only 45% of the cases recovered normally. The permanent neurological sequelaes were hemiparesis (44.4%), microcephaly (33.3%), convulsive disorder (33.3%), mental retardation (33.3%), spasticity (22.2%), and hydrocephalus (11.1%). Breast feeding alone up to the day of study (OR = 7.0, p < 0.005) was found to be a significant risk factor for bleeding in these infants.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:Risk factors of bleeding diathesis secondary to low prothrombin complex level in infants: a preliminary report. 788 52

Tizanidine is a centrally acting alpha-2 adrenoreceptor agonist widely used in the treatment of spasticity in patients with cerebral or spinal injury, and it is causing drawsiness in some of them. Based on these drug actions, we administered tizanidine to 21 spastic quadriplegic children with severe sleep disturbance not improved by conventional therapies. All these patients were showing abnormalities of both the induction and maintenance of sleep. The dosage of tizanidine was 0.1 to 0.2 mg/kg/day, divided into two or three doses. If daytime drowsiness was severe, tizanidine admistration was restricted to just prior to bedtime. In 13 patients (61.9%), we found improvement in sleep induction and/or maintenance. Moreover, patients' families were satisfied with the treatment. There were no detectable side effects except facial pallor in two patients (9.5%) whose treatment was discontinued. Severe muscle hypertonia causes severe pain, which generates strong sympathetic nerve activity and subsequent sleep disturbance. We consider that tizanidine has direct effects on the induction of sleep, and promotes muscular relaxation bringing about good sleep. We conclude that tizanidine is useful for the treatment of refractory sleep disturbance in spastic quadriplegic patients.
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PMID:[Effects of tizanidine for refractory sleep disturbance in disabled children with spastic quadriplegia]. 1556 Mar 87

Syringomyelia is the development of a fluid-filled cavity or syrinx within the spinal cord that can cause loss of sensation and muscle spasticity. Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) is a postinfection autoimmune disease, classified as an acute polyneuropathy. This report describes the emergency admission of a 6-year-old girl presenting with sudden pallor and pain in both lower limbs. The patient's reflexes were normal, as were the results of her sonography, radiography and biochemical tests; however, spinal MRI revealed extensive compartmentalised syringomyelia extending from C2 to T3. A sensory and motor nerve conduction study revealed a demyelinating type motor polyneuropathy which, along with positive Mycoplasma pneumoniae test, was suggestive of GBS. Intravenous immunoglobulin infusion showed excellent results. In conclusion, we report a rare paediatric case of syringomyelia coexisting with GBS. It is important to bear in mind the possibility of other coexisting diseases even if MRI reveals definitive characteristics of another condition.
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PMID:Comorbid presentation of syringomyelia and Guillain-Barre syndrome, attributed to mycoplasma, in a 6-year-old female patient. 3026 31