Incidence and type of pathologic alterations observed in muscle in a routine autopsy survey

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Abstract
Multiple muscle biopsies were taken at autopsy from 9 predetermined sites in 110 routine autopsies. Careful histologic study of this material has disclosed that, in 54 cases, or 49%, some type of abnormality was observed in the muscle fibers or the adjacent structures of one or more muscles. The non-specific alterations observed included various types of degeneration and regeneration of muscle fibers as well as interstitial or perivascular inflammatory infiltrates. These were found most commonly in one of the connective tissue disorders or in myasthenia gravis but were seen in a wide variety of unrelated disease states. Specific lesions observed in this series included trichina parasites in 5 cases and metastatic tumor nodules in 16% of 38 cases with malignancy. The interpretation of regeneration of muscle has been discussed in some detail, and this phenomenon was studied by special methods. The observed non-specific lesions most likely contribute to the general loss of muscular strength and debility in the chronic disease state and none of them can be relied upon to specifically clarify the clinical diagnosis of the disease under consideration.