Marchiafava-Bignami disease (MBD) is a rare alcohol-associated disorder characterized by demyelination and necrosis of the corpus callosum. We report three patients who had history of chronic alcoholism, different clinical presentation and MRI findings consistent with the diagnosis of Marchiafava-Bignami disease.

[The balance parameters and the loading symmetry was assessed in a subject with anterior cruciate ligament deficiency. A 14 days intensive training was performed mainly with eyes closed in closed kinematic chain exercises, loading the affected limb. Stabilometry and the assessment of loading symmetry was performed. The sway path was calculated in two direction. The sway path comparisons did not revealed significant differences only a tendency of decrease in anteroposterior direction. Interestingly we found an increased loading of the affected limb after our intensive training, with a mismatch between the subjective perceived symmetry and the objective symmetry data. The changed symmetry perception might be explained with the change in proprioceptive information processing induced by the training. In the future further examinations with higher case number are necessary to support this result. ]

[Lack of neurologists has become an obvious problem recently in Hungary, not only in small hospitals, but in major health care centers and also in university hospitals. With the current survey we set forth to estimate the number of board certified neurologists, and to evaluate the foreseeable changes in the next decade. In the beginning of 2010 there were 1310 physicians in Hungary with an official license to practice neurology. During 2009 neurological performance at least once during the year was claimed to the National Health Insurance Fund by 948 board certified neurologists. The number of those neurologists who are routinely involved in neurological patient care was estimated to be around 750. The lack of the young generation is characteristic for the age distribution of neurologists. In nine out of the 19 counties of Hungary the number of neurologists below the age of 35 is one or nil. In the ten-year period of 2000-2009 the annual mean number of new board certifications in neurology was 22. This number is much lower than that needed to replace those who get employed abroad and who leave the system for other reasons. The number of neurologists in the age range of 40-60 years will drop to 2/3 of the current number by 2020 even if emigration of neurologists will completely halt. If emigration will continue at the current rate and the number of those in neurological training will not increase considerably, then by 2020 only about 300 neurologists will have to cover neurological services throughout Hungary. As this number is insufficient for the task, and the tendency is clearly foreseeable, the health care government should urgently react to this situation to ensure an acceptable level of neurological services in the near future for the population of Hungary.]

[The most effective type of epilepsy surgery in adults is temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) surgery. Three quarter of the patients become seizure free, however the remaining patients experience seizures after resection. In our study we analyzed retrospectively the possible electro-clinical, neuroimaging and surgery-related outcome predictors in 94 adult patients who had anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) from the material of Epilepsy Centre of the National Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Budapest since the beginning of the surgery program in 1989 until 2001. Three outcome endpoints were chosen: the seizure status at the last visit, the longest seizure free period and the time to the first non-acute postoperative seizure. The predictors were assessed by multivariate and Cox regression methods. After one year of surgery 72% of the patients were seizure free, after two years 67% and after five years 59%. Factors predicting favorable outcome in TLE surgery were: typical temporomesial aura, strictly unilateral interictal anterotemporal spikes, unilateral ictal onset, slow contralateral propagation, hippocampal sclerosis (HS) as etiology. Factors predicting poor outcome in TLE surgery were: increase in seizure frequency in the last two preoperative years, presence of preoperative psychiatric disturbances, ictal contralateral propagation, MRI lesion distant from the surgery site, incongruency of data of preoperative investigations, postoperative sequels and non-HS type MR residuum.]

[The neurological practice suffered considerable changes during the last twenty years. The recent therapeutic methods and the acceptance of the ideology of evidence based medicine, which is based on confidence in statistics, changed the reasoning of the neurologists. Therapy protocols intrude into the field of individual medicine, and doctors accept treatment schemes to alleviate responsibility of their decisions. In contrast with this, recent achievements in pharmacogenetics emphasize the importance of individual drug therapies. The protocol of intravenous cerebral thrombolysis does not require defining the origin of cerebral ischaemia in the acute stage, therefore, this procedure can be regarded as human experiment. According to the strict protocol thrombolysis might be indicated only in 1-8% of patients with cerebral ischaemia. According to the Cohrane database more trials are needed to clarify which patients are most likely to benefit from treatment. Because of the change in therapeutic principles transient ischaemic attack has been newly defined as “acute neurovascular syndrome”. Multiplication of neurological subspecialties has been facilitated by the development of diagnostic tools and the discovery of effective new drugs. The specialization led to narrowing of interest and competency of clinicians. Several new neurological scientific societies were founded for the representation of specific disorders. In Hungary, between 1993 and 2000 nine scientific societies were grounded within the field of clinical neurology. These societies should be thankful to the pharmaceutical industries for their existence. In some European countries in 2007 only three neurological subspecialties were accepted, which are neurophysiology, neuro-rehabilitation and childneurology. Neuro-radiology is in the hands of general radiologists, the specialization is not granted for neurologists. Because of the subspecialization the general professionalism of neurologists has diminished. Among young neurologists the propedeutic skills suffered most seriously. Subspecialisation of teachers also interferes with the practice oriented teaching of medical students and residents.]