HISTOLOGICAL STUDY OF MUSCULAR CHANGES IN PROGRESSIVE MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY

Changes of skeletal muscle of 28 patients with progressive muscular dystrophy were studied light microscopically. Slowly progressive muscular atrophy with various forms of degeneration and more acute necrosis with incomplete regeneration were the principal changes. Fatty tissue infiltration and fibrosis of the interstitial tissue seemed to occur relatively late in the course of the disease. Incidence of necrosis and regeneration of muscle fibers are significantly higher in the Duchenne-type dystrophy and in an early stage, thus giving some quantitative difference concerning the genetic clinical types and duration of the disease, though no definite specific change is found for each type of muscular dystrophy.
Significance of these changes are discussed from a morphological standpoint and under consideration of biological speciality of muscle fiber. Regenerative substitution of necrotic muscle fiber performed by survived nuclei of the necrotic fiber itself in close association of myophago-cytosis appeared to be a peculiar process exhibited by skeletal muscle as a syncytial cell.