VACCINE

Neuropediatrics • August 2009
Macrophagic myofasciitis plus
(distinct types of muscular dystrophy)
Author information
Müller HD1, Landeghem FK,
Schmidt PF, Sommer C, Goebel HH.
Department of Neuropathology
University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Mainz, Germany
mueller@neuropatho.klinik.uni-mainz.de
Abstract
Macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) is a well-known lesion following vaccination
with aluminium-containing vaccines. It has abundantly been reported in adults and
several times in children, often in single patients or in rather small cohorts. Only
few of these published reports on children have shown distinct myopathology of
another neuromuscular disease except for MMF. Indications for biopsy often were
nondescript clinical features in children, such as hypotonia or delay in motor development
but, apparently, never that of suspected MMF. Thus, in previous reports
as well as in our two patients, encountering MMF in the biopsied tissue specimens
was coincidental. Our two unrelated patients with MMF also had two separate
types of muscular dystrophy, a merosinopathy and dystrophinopathy, showing a
combination of myopathologically well-defined neuromuscular diseases, muscular
dystrophies and MMF. Detecting such a combination of two separate conditions
may, in the future, be rare when non-invasive techniques, e. g., genetic, will have
replaced muscle biopsy in ascertaining hereditary neuromuscular conditions, especially
in children.
“Macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) is a well-known lesion
following vaccination with aluminium-containing
vaccines. It has abundantly been reported in adults and
several times in children, often in single patients or in
rather small cohorts. Our two unrelated patients with
MMF also had two separate types of muscular dystrophy,
a merosinopathy and dystrophinopathy, showing a
combination of myopathologically well-defined
neuromuscular diseases, muscular dystrophies and MMF.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20135575