Os autores registram um caso de mielite transversa pós-infecciosa em paciente que apresenta espinha bifida oculta torácica, no mesmo nível. Estas duas condições clínicas são infreqüentes e o fato de surgirem em um mesmo paciente e, ainda, no mesmo nível, leva ao raciocínio de que estejam relacionadas uma à outra. Os autores pensam que o defeito congênito vertebral estabeleceu um "ponto vulnerável" naquela área predispondo o paciente a que ali se estabelecesse a complicação medular pós-infecciosa ("locus minor resistentia").

The patient, a 30 year-old man, dentist, started having an influenza-like infection which lasted five days, with malaise, muscle pain throughout the body and fever- One day before the hospital admission he presented urinary retention followed in the next day by ataxia and numbness sensation in both feet and lower third of his legs. The neurological examination disclosed a thoracic spinal cord impairment at T9-T10 level and the diagnosis of a post- infectious transverse myelitis was made. The plain Rx of the spine showed a spina bifida oculta in the T7 vertebra, which is roughly at the same level of the T9-T10 spinal cord segment. An iodinated myelography showed no abnormalities. The CSF examination showed small increase in the white cells (6.4 cells/cu.mm). The patient received dexamethasone (4.5g/day) and two weeks later was entirely free of symptoms. The authors think that the congenital bone defect (spina bifida) might have played a role in the development of the myelitis, probably because of an ontogenetically determined "vulnerable point" ("locus minor resistentia") at that level, either anatomical or immunological.

A terapia da linguagem na afasia foi estudada em 15 pacientes, 8 do sexo masculino e 7 do sexo feminino; a idade variou de menos de 10 anos a mais de 50 anos; em 11 casos a afasia era sequela de acidente vascular cerebral e, em 4, de traumatismo crânio-encefálico. Quanto ao tipo de afasia, 5 pacientes apresentavam déficits predominantemente de expressão e 10 apresentavam déficits receptivos e expressivos em graus equiparáveis. Em 6 casos a terapia foi iniciada dentro dos 3 primeiros meses de instalação do quadro; nos restantes foi iniciada mais tardiamente. Dos 15 pacientes, 11 apresentaram evolução satisfatória, a qual não depndeu do grau de afasia, do tipo de afasia, da idade do paciente, do tipo de patologia e do intervalo entre a instalação do quadro afásico e o início da terapia. A terapia da linguagem no paciente afásico é efetiva, o prognóstico não pode ser feito a priori. Somente a evolução do caso com sua retestagem criteriosa poderá dar dados realmente úteis para se falar em evolução.

The speech therapy in fifteen aphasic patients was studied. The group consisted of 8 male and 7 female patients and their ages ranged from less than ten to more than fifty years. In eleven cases the aphasia was due to cerebrovascular disease and in the remaining four cases to traumatic injury to the brain. Predominantly expressive aphasia accounted for five patients while in the others a comparable degree of receptive and expressive deficits existed. Six patients had their therapy programme started within the first three months after the acute phase and the rest of the group started it after more time had elapsed. Eleven patients showed a satisfactory revovery regardless the inicial deficit severity, the patients age, the pathology of the lesion or the period of time which elapsed from the beginning of the disease to the start of the therapy. The speech therapy in aphasic patients is effective although a firm prognosis cannot be established at the beginning of the programme. Useful information concerning prognosis only can be taken from the follow-up and after thoroughly retesting the patients.