[Fluorescence histochemical study of catecholamine concentrations in the skeletal muscles of patients with different forms of progressive neuromuscular disease].

The content of catecholamines was examined in the skeletal muscle of 16 patients with progressing muscular dystrophies (PMD) with the fluorescent histochemical method of Folck-Hillarp modified by V.N. Shvalev and N. I. Zhuchkova. Of the 16 patients 4 were suffering from Becker's PMD; 3, from Erb-Roth's PMD; 1, from Dreifus PMD; 3, from Kugelberg-Welander's spinal amyotrophy; 3, from Charcot-Marie's neural amyotrophy; 2, from Roussy-Levy's syndrome; and 2 from Curschmann-Steinert-Batten's myotonic dystrophy. The skeletal muscles of patients hospitalized at urological and orthopedic divisions served as control. Considerable accumulations of catecholamines were revealed in the skin, subcutaneous fat, and loose amorphous connective tissue surrounding the muscular fibres in the patients with PMD and myotonic dystrophies. In the patients with denervation amyotrophies a sharp fall of the fluorescence intensity with a reduction of the number of fluorescent fibres, their thinning, and diminution of the size of varicose thickenings were revealed.