Spinal cord neuropathology in human West Nile virus infection.

CONTEXT: During the 1999 New York City West Nile virus (WNV) outbreak, 4 patients with profound muscle weakness, attributed to Guillain-Barré syndrome, were autopsied. These cases were the first deaths caused by WNV, a flavivirus, to be reported in the United States. The patients' brains had signs of mild viral encephalitis; spinal cords were not examined. During the 2002 national epidemic, several patients in Mississippi had acute flaccid paralysis. Electrophysiologic studies localized the lesions to the anterior horn cells in the spinal gray matter. Four of 193 infected patients in Mississippi died and were autopsied. All 4 experienced muscular weakness and respiratory failure that required intubation. Postmortem examinations focused on the spinal cord. OBJECTIVE: To emphasize apparent tropism of WNV for the ventral gray matter of the spinal cord. DESIGN: Cerebral hemispheres, basal ganglia, diencephalon, brainstem, cerebellum, and spinal cord sections were stained with hematoxylin-eosin and incubated with antibodies to T cells, B cells, and macrophages/microglial cells. RESULTS: We identified neuronophagia, neuronal disappearance, perivascular chronic inflammation, and microglial proliferation in the ventral horns of the spinal cord, especially in the cervical and lumbar segments. Loss of ganglionic neurons, nodules of Nageotte, and perivascular lymphocyte aggregates were found in dorsal root and sympathetic ganglia. Severity of cellular reaction was proportional to the interval length between patient presentation and death. CONCLUSION: West Nile virus caused poliomyelitis. Injury to spinal and sympathetic ganglia mirrored the damage to the spinal gray matter. The disappearance of sympathetic neurons could lead to the autonomic instability observed in some WNV patients, including labile vital signs, hypotension, and potentially lethal cardiac arrhythmias.

Group for research in pathology education online resources to facilitate pathology instruction.

BACKGROUND: The Group for Research in Pathology Education (GRIPE) is an organization of pathology educators whose purpose is to promote and facilitate excellence in pathology education. One important function of GRIPE is the maintenance of image and multiple-choice test question data banks. These resources have recently been made available online via the GRIPE Digital Library Web site. The purpose of the GRIPE Digital Library project was to develop an online searchable database that would facilitate access to the GRIPE resources for pathology education. DESIGN: The GRIPE image bank--containing approximately 3000 peer-reviewed gross and microscopic pathologic images along with textual descriptions--was linked with the GRIPE test question bank using Gossamer Thread's DBMan Web database management program. The search and display templates create a functional user interface that integrates images, image descriptions, and test questions into a single online digital library. Using any Web browser, faculty can access the GRIPE Digital Library and search for images and/or test items that can be used in teaching. RESULTS: In the first 18 months (February 2000 through July 2001), users at 40 GRIPE member institutions signed up and used the GRIPE Digital Library to perform more than 6000 individual searches and view more than 37500 images. These digital images were used to produce lectures and laboratory modules that were posted on Web pages and made available to students remotely. CONCLUSIONS: The GRIPE Digital Library provides a unique resource that can facilitate development of educational materials for pathology instruction and helps to fulfill the educational mission of GRIPE.