Long-term follow-up after arthrodesis of the hip-joint using cross-plates and pelvic osteotomy, particularly late complications. Results of follow-up for 4-8 years (author's transl)]

In two thirds of our patients there were no complications. All fractures could be healed after osteosynthesis or plaster. At least those patients who had tight pseudarthroses were relatively free from pain on weight-bearing. But 34% of our patients showed severe complications - pseudarthroses and post-operative fractures. The argument in favor of early mobilisation, the mainstay for the choice of this technique of arthrodesis, does not - as our long-term follow-up shows - carry conviction.     

Schenkelhalslyse und Coxa vara

Zusammenfassung Es wird über 6 Fälle einer bisher nicht bekannten Schenkelhalslyse mit Coxa vara-Fehlform berichtet. Eine Abgrenzung dieser Deformität, die immer im Zusammenhang mit Spina bifida gefunden wurde, zu anderen Coxa vara-Formen wird versucht. Therapeutisch hat sich die intertrochantere Aufrichtungsosteotomie bewährt.

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Lysis of the femoral neck and coxa vara

Summary Six cases of femoral neck destruction with coxa vara deformity are reported. Etiology and pathogenesis of this deformity found in children with spina bifida paralysis are discussed. Valgus osteotomy was found to give satisfactory results.

     

Prolongierte passagere Paralyse nach pneumatischer Blutsperrenanwendung am Oberarm

A case of paralysis in a youth lasting 7.5 months caused by application of a tourniquet is described. The paralysis was induced by the brief application of excessive cuff pressure. The function of the arm nerves returned spontaneously.     

Complete paraplegia due to multiple intracerebral and spinal cavernomas

We report on a 29-year-old male patient with multiple intracerebral and spinal cavernomas. Bleeding in the thoracic cord at admission and additional bleeding which occurred 12 days later in the cervical cord resulted in complete paraplegia below thoracic level 4 (Th4). Four years earlier multiple cerebral cavernomas had been diagnosed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Based upon reported cases in the literature multiple intracerebral and spinal cavernomas are exceptional. Additionally, the clinical presentation in our case is uncommon.     

Prevalence of positive selection among nearly neutral amino acid replacements in Drosophila

We have estimated the selective effects of amino acid replacements in natural populations by comparing levels of polymorphism in 91 genes in African populations of Drosophila melanogaster with their divergence from Drosophila simulans. The genes include about equal numbers whose level of expression in adults is greater in males, greater in females, or approximately equal in the sexes. Markov chain Monte Carlo methods were used to sample key parameters in the stationary distribution of polymorphism and divergence in a model in which the selective effect of each nonsynonymous mutation is regarded as a random sample from some underlying normal distribution whose mean may differ from one gene to the next. Our analysis suggests that approximately 95% of all nonsynonymous mutations that could contribute to polymorphism or divergence are deleterious, and that the average proportion of deleterious amino acid polymorphisms in samples is approximately 70%. On the other hand, approximately 95% of fixed differences between species are positively selected, although the scaled selection coefficient (N(e)s) is very small. We estimate that approximately 46% of amino acid replacements have N(e)s < 2, approximately 84% have N(e)s < 4, and approximately 99% have N(e)s < 7. Although positive selection among amino acid differences between species seems pervasive, most of the selective effects could be regarded as nearly neutral. There are significant differences in selection between sex-biased and unbiased genes, which relate primarily to the mean of the distributions of mutational effects and the fraction of slightly deleterious and weakly beneficial mutations that are fixed.