Small fiber neuropathy (SFN) is a peripheral nerve condition causing neuropathic pain and autonomic complaints. Skin biopsy an important diagnostic tool for diagnosing SFN. SFN associated with conditions like diabetes mellitus autoimmune diseases, but in 53% of the patients, etiology remains unknown. Treating underlying first-line treatment, most patients will also need symptomatic treatment ba...

OBJECTIVE To assess the right-to-left and short-term variability of intraepidermal nerve fiber density (IENFD) at the distal site of the leg. METHODS Patients with possible or probable small fiber neuropathy (SFN) and healthy volunteers (HVs) underwent skin biopsies at the right and left distal leg. A subgroup of participants underwent follow-up biopsies 20 days later. Biopsies were immunosta...

We reviewed dinical, histological and ultrastructural findings of 124 cases of sural nerve biopsy specimens to delineate the trends of peripheral nerve diseases in our institute. Eighty-one were men and 43 were women. We categorized them into five groups: specific diagnosis (66 cases, 53.2%), axonal degeneration type (47 cases, 37.9%), demyelinating type (4 cases, 3.2%), mixed axonal degenerati...

Read any overview of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and you will learn that ALS affects motor nerves but not sensory nerves-but is this correct? A study by an investigative team in the Department of Neurology at Emory University in Atlanta suggests that sural nerves indeed are affected. In reviewing cases entered into the Emory University motor neuron disease registry between 1997 and 2004...

OBJECTIVES Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is often associated with cryoglobulinaemia (CG). Peripheral neuropathy (PN) is a comparatively common complication of CG associated with HCV infection and it is thought to be attributable to nerve ischaemia. Only few HCV CG patients with PN have been reported. The recent finding of HCV RNA in nerve biopsy specimens has suggested a possible direct rol...

Aims: To present the case of a patient with early-onset demyelinating neuropathy due to a MPZ-mutation, associated with deafness and inclusion-body-myopathy. Methods: Nerve conduction studies, electromyography, muscle biopsy, genetic testing. Results and Discussion: In a 46yo male with slowly progressive weakness and wasting since childhood initially of the lower and later also of the distal up...

Enlarged peripheral nerves are one of the cardinal manifestations of leprosy and the involvement of the great auricular nerve is well known. Enlargement of the “transverse cervical nerve” (also known as “superficial cervical” or “transverse cutaneous nerve of neck”) in leprosy is rarely reported. As depicted in Figures 1 and 2, we observed enlargement of bilateral transverse cervical nerves alo...

In order to elicit the usefulness of sural nerve biopsy we retrospectively evaluated the courses of disease of every patient, who underwent this procedure in our department between January 1995 and March 2000. Sixty seven patients with the suspected diagnosis of peripheral neuropathy could be included. From these chart reviews and patient questionings were done. Inflammatory-demyelinating neuro...