VACCINE

Brain Pathology • January 2004
The July 2003 Case of the Month (COM)
62-year-old female with progressive muscular weakness
Author information
Bornemann A1, Bohl J, Schneider HM,
Goebel HH, Schmidt PF, Gherardi RK.
Institute of Brain Research
Eberhard-Karls University
Tübingen, Germany
Abstract
The July 2003 Case of the Month (COM). A 62-year-old female patient experienced progressive
muscular weakness over the last ten years, involving shoulder and pelvic girdle
muscles, paraspinal and facial muscles. A biopsy was taken from the left deltoid muscle
where hepatitis vaccination had taken place 4 weeks previously. The specimen revealed
macrophagic myofasciitis due to the injection of aluminium-bound vaccines. The finding
can be reproduced experimentally by injecting vaccines in rats. The pathomechanism is
supposed to involve immune stimulation due to long term persistence of the adjuvant.
Macrophagic myofasciitis has been suggested to occasionally cause myopathy but is
supposed to be unrelated to the underlying myopathy in our patient.
“The specimen revealed
macrophagic myofasciitis due to
the injection of aluminium-bound vaccines.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=14997943