For centuries, histology has maintained its remarkable place in the medical curriculum. However, its teaching has been influenced by the new technological advancement that has reshaped medicine teaching into a more modern student-friendly form. Since its inception in the 18th century, the discipline of histology has progressed hand in hand with the advancements in microscopy and microscopic technologies, including immunohistochemistry.In the traditional curriculum of USA medical schools, especially after the first Flexner's report of 1910, histology was considered as very essential topic for a physician studying the "Art and Science" of medicine. In this era, the teaching relied more on the light microscope and to some extent on the electron microscope. However, the field nowadays, after the second Flexner's report, which stressed the importance of integrating clinical topics in the curriculum, is shifting towards the use of more electronic resources for teaching. Such new resources rely on information technology and electronic imaging modalities which are considered to be more student-friendly, time efficient, consistent in conveying the images, promote self-learning and are less costly. In fact, in the last 25 years, most universities started relying on virtual microscopy with limited use of the light microscopy by the students. Such an approach facilitated curricular integration of histology into histopathology and provided the opportunity to promote self-learning and clinical relevance. In the era of competency-based curriculum, histology remains an essential and indispensable basic science in the integrated modules.
Pyle disease is a rare genetic skeletal disorder which is conventionally classified with craniotubular dysplasias. The radiographic manifestations in three affected adults included widening of the metaphyseal portions of the long bones which extended through a major portion of the diaphyses, with cortical thinning and mild cranial sclerosis. The femora presented the characteristic Erlenmeyer flask configuration. Pyle disease is clinically, radiographically and genetically distinct from craniometaphyseal dysplasia, a relatively common condition with which it has been confused.
Oculodento‐osseous dysplasia (ODOD) has been recognised in three South African patients from two kindreds of Dutch descent. Their ocular, nasal, dental and digital stigmata resembled those of previously reported cases, but their cranial hyperostosis and mandibular overgrowth were of much greater degree. In addition, the two survivors had serious neurological complications consequent upon spinal cord compression at the base of the skull and calcification of the basal ganglia. Two of the patients were the product of marriages between a pair of brothers and a pair of sisters, who were themselves clinically normal. This situation is best explained by autosomal recessive inheritance. As ODOD is usually transmitted as an autosomal dominant, and in view of the unusual severity of the manifestations in our patients, it is possible that the condition is heterogeneous and that they had a distinct autosomal recessive form of the disorder. The presence of minimal stigmata in the mother and two prior generations of our third patient could be equally well interpreted as representing great variation in phenotypic expression of a single dominant gene or manifestation in a heterozygote for a recessive gene.
Two young adults with Pyle disease have been investigated in a large Afrikaner kindred in South Africa. Consanguinity was present in the family, and it is likely that the condition was inherited as an autosomal recessive. This contention is supported by the radiographic demonstration of minor degrees of widening of the distal femora in obligatory and potentially heterozygous relatives. Apart from genu valgus of moderate degree, the patients enjoyed good health and their gross radiographic skeletal abnormalities contrasted with the innocuous clinical presentation. Differentiation of Pyle disease from the autosomal dominant and autosomal recessive forms of cranio‐metaphyseal dysplasia is of prognostic importance in view of the potentially serious complications in these latter disorders.
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