[Anoxic encephalopathy after cardiocirculatory insufficiency. Neuropathological study apropos of 16 cases]

Sixteen cases of anoxic encephalopathy in adult patients admitted to the intensive Care Department of Raymond Poincaré Hospital (Garches) have been selected on the following criteria: resuscitation by external cardiac massage for cardio-respiratory failure, without any previous history of anoxia and with detailed data on the subsequent evolution of neurological signs and symptoms. Main clinical features were compared to the results of the neuropathological examination. The pattern and the distribution of changes are detailed. The cerebral cortex was always involved by diffuse ischemic cell changes or by laminar necrosis. The Sommer's sector of Ammon's horn was affected in 15 cases, the basal ganglia in 14, the cerebellum in 11, the brain stem in 6. The very rarely mentionned necrotic brain stem changes, which involved inferior colliculi, periaqueductal gray matter and substantia nigra were sometimes associated with lesions of the floor of the IVth Ventricle and of the mamillary bodies. They were different from Wernicke's encephalopathy with could be dismissed on clinical and pathological grounds. No clinical signs or symptoms specific for this distribution of changes could be found by the retrospective study of the clinical files.