Age at onset in Huntington's disease: effect of line of inheritance and patient's sex.

The Leiden Roster for Huntington's disease (HD) contained data on 2617 cases up to July 1988. The age at onset (AO) was known in 1084 cases and in 1020 of these both their AO and the sex of the affected parent was known. The mean AO was higher for females than for males and higher for maternal than for paternal cases. However, in the group born before 1925 only females with maternal inheritance had a higher mean AO. Data on influence of sex and line of inheritance were present for the grandparents as well as for the great grandparents. Influence of the line of inheritance from the grandparents was particularly present for the grandmother-father (MP) lineage; regarding the great grandparents a significant difference was found between the MPM and PMP lineage. The results obtained for juvenile HD cases were comparable to those previously published. In late onset cases (over 50 years) no maternal preponderance in inheritance was found.

Cognitive function after spinal or general anesthesia for transurethral prostatectomy in elderly men.

Cognitive functions in 53 elderly men who underwent a transurethral prostatectomy were assessed pre-operatively and 4 days and 3 months post-operatively. Thirteen patients had a preference for one particular type of anesthesia, and the remaining 40 were randomly allocated to receive either spinal or general anesthesia. Cognitive function was not different between the groups receiving different types of anesthesia at either time point and did not decrease post-operatively. No pre- or perioperative variable could distinguish the subgroup of patients who had a post-operative decrease of 2 points or more on the Mini-Mental State Examination. No difference in post-operative performance was found in the patient groups with pre-operative Mini-Mental State Examination scores above or under their age-specific norm. It is concluded that neither hospitalization nor the two forms of anesthesia investigated cause a decrease in cognitive function in elderly men.