The spectrum of muscle disorders diagnosed at King Hussein Medical Center : an 8 year experience

Abstract EN

Objective: To report on the prevalence of various muscle disorders encountered at King Hussein Medical Center in terms of diagnosis, age and gender distribution.

Method: This is a retrospective study of 636 cases of suspected muscle diseases that were biopsied over a period of eight years at King Hussein Medical Center between January 2006 and December 2013.

The biopsies were examined by several methods including Haematoxylin and Eosin stained frozen tissue sections, muscle enzyme histochemistry, immunohistochemistry, and electron microscopic examination.

The different disease diagnoses that were encountered were classified and analyzed.

Results: A positive biopsy with significant changes was encountered in 437(68.7%) of the patients.

There were 168 (26.4%) normal biopsies and 31 (4.8%) inadequate specimens.

Of specimens with positive findings there were 169 (38.7%) cases of dystrophy, 72 (16.4%) cases of inflammatory myositis, 70 (16%) cases of neurogenic atrophy, 36 (8.2%) cases of congenital myopathy, 19 (4.3%) cases of mitochondrial myopathy, and 71 (16.2%) cases that were grouped together as having various other myopathic changes.

A total of 272 positive biopsies belonged to male patients, and 165 belonged to female patients.

The age range of patients varied from 1 month to 75 year old.

Conclusion: Muscle biopsies are frequently encountered at King Hussein Medical Center practice.

Accurate histopathologic diagnosis and classification of myopathies requires several advanced techniques which can only be carried out at a fully equipped laboratory center.

In this study the largest groups of patients were diagnosed to with dystrophy, followed by inflammatory myositis and neurogenic muscular atrophy.