The immotile-cilia syndrome. Functional and ultrastructural alterations.

Literature was critically reviewed on the grounds of the ultrastructural and clinical observations made on three subjects carriers of Kartagener's syndrome. The relationship between the various ultrastructural aspects (lack of dynein arms and casual orientation of the central microtubular doublet) and the clinical evidence elicited in all the sites lined with ciliated epithelia (auditory apparatus, vestibular apparatus, genital organs and central nervous system). Attribution of the genesis of situs viscerum inversus to lack of ciliar motion was brought up for discussion again.