The quantification of myotonia. A problem in the evaluation of new antimyotonic drugs |
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Authors: | L Durelli R Mutani S Piredda F Fassio M Delsedime |
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Affiliation: | Clinica Neurologica, Università di Sassari, I-07100 Sassari Italy |
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Abstract: | The evaluation of an antimyotonic drug is often difficult since the severity of myotonia is itself hard to assess. The rise in arterial potassium level produced by the infusion of increasing concentrations of potassium chloride brought about reproducible changes in the excitability level of myotonic muscles proportional to the plasma potassium concentration. The excitability changes were assessed by three methods commonly used for evaluating antimyotonic drugs. The duration of the electromyographic relaxation time after maximal voluntary effort proved to be the only test which reliably assessed the variations of muscular excitability proportional to the increased plasma potassium. By contrast, the duration of percussion- or electrically-induced myotonic after-discharges was extremely variable and independent of plasma potassium. |
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Keywords: | Please send correspondence and reprint requests to: Dr. Luca Durelli M.D. Clinica Neurologica Facoltà di Medicina Università di Torino Via Cherasco 15 I-10126 Turin Italy. |
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