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57th Annual Meeting of the German Society for Neuropathology and Neuroanatomy (DGNN)

German Society for Neuropathology and Neuroanatomy

12. - 15.09.2012, Erlangen

57th Annual Meeting of the German Society for Neuropathology and Neuroanatomy (DGNN)

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Muscle biopsy: Diagnostic value and spectrum of alterations in 2836 patients

Meeting Abstract

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  • presenting/speaker Christian Hagel - University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Institute of Neuropathology, Hamburg, Germany
  • Christine Pfanzelt - University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Institute of Neuropathology, Hamburg, Germany
  • Tim Magnus - University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Dept. of Neurology, Hamburg, Germany
  • Markus Glatzel - University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Institute of Neuropathology, Hamburg, Germany
  • Klaus Kunze - University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Dept. of Neurology, Hamburg, Germany

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neuropathologie und Neuroanatomie. 57th Annual Meeting of the German Society for Neuropathology and Neuroanatomy (DGNN). Erlangen, 12.-15.09.2012. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2012. Doc12dgnnPP1.13

doi: 10.3205/12dgnn031, urn:nbn:de:0183-12dgnn0311

Published: September 11, 2012

© 2012 Hagel et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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Muscle biopsy is a long established and frequently used diagnostic tool. However, until now only few studies have evaluated its diagnostic value. We therefore systematically analyzed the clinical and histological reports of 2836 patients (1199 female, 1660 male) who had one or more muscle biopsies taken in the Dept. of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, between 1982 and 2004. Age at biopsy ranged from 2 to 86 years (mean age for female patients 53.35 years, for male patients 50.68 years). Clinically a myogenic disorder was suspected in 1319 cases and a neurogenic in 1078 cases whereas histopathology demonstrated only 868 cases to suffer from myogenic disorders and 1461 with neurogenic alterations. Clinical and histopathological diagnoses matched in about 50% of the cases for myositis, metabolic myopathies and muscular dystrophies and in 30% of the cases for neurogenic disorders exemplifying the diagnostic significance of muscle biopsy. In 674 cases the histological report only stated unspecific myogenic alterations and in 456 patients histology showed no pathological changes at all. A second biopsy was performed in 152 patients confirming the diagnosis of the first investigation in 44% of the cases and leading to a specification or different diagnosis in 20%. No significant differences were observed between the four investigators concerning the frequencies of diagnoses.