[Experimental data on the morphogenesis of the spinal compression syndrome in congenital scoliosis]

The authors have made a roentgenologic and histologic study of the preparations of the vertebral columns of 13 rats with congenital scoliosis born to the rats who had been administered a teratogenic drug (6-merkaptopurin) during their pregnancy. In part of the rats the spinal deformations were accompanied by pathologic changes in the vertebrae and in the discs and by an abrupt narrowing (flattening) of the vertebral canal which caused disturbance in the blood flow in the mater spinalis, edema and sclerosis of the epidural space, hypoxia of the neurons, atrophy and glial and cicatrix substitution of the spinal cord tissue in the area of the curvature. The observed clinical picture of the compression spinal syndrome (posterior paraparesis with disturbed functions of the organs of the pelvis) reminded of similar disturbances in the patients with severe congenital kyphoscoliosis.