Peripheral motor nerve conduction studies in patients with chronic Chagas' disease

Abstract

SUMMARY -A comprenhensive investigation of nerve motor conduction velocity was carried out in the ulnar nerve of 70 patients in the chronic stage of Chagas disease. It was found that 2.6% of them, had slowness of the large motor axons at distal segments and 14% at proximal segments. Twenty seven percent of them had also slowness of conduction at the smallest motor fibers. These observations signal that some patients in the chronic stage of the infection may develop a motor neuropathy. 1^who studied the maximal motor nerve conduction velocities and did not find major differences when they compared patients and controls.An obvious limitation for a deeper investigation of these fibers in man is the impossibility of perfoming motor nerve biopsies.The aim of the present study has been to obtain some more information about the state of the nerve motor fibers in patients who have reached the chronic stage of the disease by employing electrophysiological techniques able to search for the state of the smaller motor fibers and the conduction speed of the largest at their proximal segments. MATERIAL AND METHODSPatients -Altogether 70 patients were investigated. Twenty three of them were females and 47 were males. Their ages ranged between 11 and 49 years. The diagnosis of Chagas' disease was done at the Instituto Nacional de Diagnóstico y Tratamiento de la Enfermedad de Chagas at Buenos Aires. None of the patients had received any treatment related to the infection. Other causes of nervous damage were excluded by rejecting patients over 60 years

Clinical manifestations of peripheral nervous system involvement in human chronic chagas disease

“…It is worthy to note that weakness was not noted in these patients. The sensory impairment predominance also is in line with findings of previous studies where it was observed, electrophysiologically, overt compromise of sensory fibres 16 and mild involvement of motor axons 17 . In the present investigation the figures obtained electrophysiologically showed a prominent damage of the sensory fibres.…”

Neurotripanosomiasis americana: aspectos clínicos de un problema básico.

“…Se observan, además, infiltrados granulomatosos perivasculares y lesiones desmielinizantes multifocales (65,66). Se ha detectado, también, una neuropatía desmielinizante con áreas de remielinización, tanto en los nervios motores como en los sensitivos (67)(68)(69)(70), que confirman algunos de estos hallazgos con estudios de neuroconducción (70).…”