A comparison of the structure of small blood vessels in normal, denervated and dystrophic human muscle.

A light- and electron-microscopic study of the small arterial vessels and capillaries in muscle from 20 patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy failed to adduce any direct morphological evidence that the necrobiotic muscle lesions in this disease are produced by muscle ischaemia. However the electron-microscopic studies showed that the basement membrane width in 3 out of 4 cases of Duchenne dystrophy so studied was significantly less than that or normal control material. In further case of Duchenne dystrophy, selected for study because some vessels in the biopsy muscle were surrounded by small round cell infilitrates, the basement membrane width was significantly greater than that in the normal control material. In the single case of spinal muscular atrophy studied, the basement membrane width was also significantly less than the control measurements. The possible relationship of these observations to the "ischaemic" theory of the pathogenesis of muscular dystrophy is discussed.