Rev Neurol France
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Recent reports have shown that intraneural injections of sera from patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome have demyelinating effects on rat peripheral nerve. Some authors have proposed that this could merely result from immune phenomena due to species differences. In this study we injected normal human sera and sera from normal Lewis rats into nerves of Lewis rats. We consider that the small lesions observed were due more to the injection procedure itself than to effects of the sera.
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
[Efficacy of sodium valproate in partial epilepsy. Crossed study of valproate and carbamazepine].
An open response-conditional cross-over study of valproate versus carbamazepine has been done in previously untreated patients with partial seizures. Thirty-one patients entered the study. Nineteen were followed up to one year. ⋯ It is of course limited when given as co-therapy in severe epilepsies, uncontrolled with other major antiepileptic drugs. However in naive patients, with recent and previously untreated partial epilepsies, a one-drug treatment with valproate appears to be as effective as carbamazepine or phenytoin. It has less unwanted side-effects and should be prescribed as first line treatment.
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A 62 year-old man suffered of headache and progressive walking difficulties for 4 years. Radiological examinations showed a calcified intraventricular tumor attached to the floor of the 3rd ventricle. Death, caused by septicemia, occurred before neurosurgery. ⋯ Pathologically proven purely intraventricular craniopharyngiomas have been seldom reported. To our knowledge an autopsy case of pediculated intraventricular craniopharyngioma has been previously described only once, without particular attention to the pedicle. The integrity of the floor of the 3rd ventricle constitutes the only feature that may differentiate with certainty an intraventricular extension of a suprasellar craniopharyngioma from a pure intraventricular form of this tumor.
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Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects nearly 40 000 patients in France. Many factors are mixed up in the development of MS. Epidemiologic studies demonstrate the importance of environmental factors and some possible epidemics of MS in Faroe Islands and Iceland. ⋯ Scan and of nuclear magnetic resonance are discussed. Main therapeutic trends are emphasized. The underlying ethic problem of the choice of a therapy is discussed.
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The long history of sciatica is recalled from the 18th century observations through the contributions of Lasègue (a philosopher who worked with Claude Bernard), Valleix, Brissaud, Dejerine, Sicard, Forestier, Alajouanine and Petit-Dutaillis. Two papers by professor de Sèze on the significance of herniations of lumbar disks were published in December 1939 and June 1940, a most unfavourable period in France. Since then many advances are to be recorded among which the use of metrizamide instead of the old lipiodol and, most of all, the advent of CT Scan.