A large proportion of spinal cord injuries (SCI) are incomplete. Even in clinically complete injuries, silent non-functional connections can be present. Therapeutic approaches that can strengthen transmission in weak neural connections to improve motor performance are needed. Our aim was to determine whether long-term delivery of paired associative stimulation (PAS, a combination of transcranial magnetic stimulation [TMS] with peripheral nerve stimulation [PNS]) can enhance motor output in the hands of patients with chronic traumatic tetraplegia, and to compare this technique with long-term PNS. Five patients (4 males; age 38–68, mean 48) with no contraindications to TMS received 4 weeks (16 sessions) of stimulation. PAS was given to one hand and PNS combined with sham TMS to the other hand. Patients were blinded to the treatment. Hands were selected randomly. The patients were evaluated by a physiotherapist blinded to the treatment. The follow-up period was 1 month. Patients were evaluated with Daniels and Worthingham's Muscle Testing (0–5 scale) before the first stimulation session, after the last stimulation session, and 1 month after the last stimulation session. One month after the last stimulation session, the improvement in the PAS-treated hand was 1.02 ± 0.17 points (p < 0.0001, n = 100 muscles from 5 patients). The improvement was significantly higher in PAS-treated than in PNS-treated hands (176 ± 29%, p = 0.046, n = 5 patients). Long-term PAS might be an effective tool for improving motor performance in incomplete chronic SCI patients. Further studies on PAS in larger patient cohorts, with longer stimulation duration and at earlier stages after the injury, are warranted.

Aspirated pus samples from 124 patients with peritonsillar abscess were cultured quantitatively for aerobes and anaerobes. A total of 98% of the samples yielded bacteria. Of the 550 isolates obtained (mean, 4.4 per patient), 143 were aerobes (representing 16 species or groups) and 407 were anaerobes (representing 40 species or groups). Aerobes were isolated from 86% of patients-alone in 20 cases and together with anaerobes in 87. The most common aerobic isolates were Streptococcus pyogenes (isolated from 45% of patients), Streptococcus milleri group organisms (27%), Haemophilus influenzae (11%), and viridans streptococci (11%). Anaerobes were isolated from 82% of the samples and as a sole finding from 15 abscesses. Fusobacterium necrophorum and Prevotella melaninogenica were both isolated from 38% of patients, Prevotella intermedia from 32%, Peptostreptococcus micros from 27%, Fusobacterium nucleatum from 26%, and Actinomyces odontolyticus from 23%. The rate of previous tonsillar/peritonsillar infections was lowest (25%) among patients infected with S. pyogenes and highest (52%) among those infected with F. necrophorum (P < .01). Recurrences and/or related tonsillectomies were more common among patients infected with F. necrophorum than among those infected with S. pyogenes (57% vs. 19%; P < .0001) or with S. milleri group organisms (43% vs. 19%; P < .05). beta-Lactamase was produced by only 38% of the 73 isolates of Prevotella species tested; however, 56% of the 36 patients studied harbored one or more such strains.