Pathologic changes in the autonomic nervous system were studied postmortem in five cases of insulin-dependent diabetes of early onset. All had had clinical evidence of peripheral sensorimotor neuropathy and developed disturbances of autonomic function that included postural hypotension, diarrhoea, bladder dysfunction, impotence (in the men), and signs of cardiac denervation. In coeliac and other sympathetic ganglia there were many distended ('giant') or vacuolated neurons as well as enlarged club-shaped neural processes. The vagus nerve and sympathetic trunks showed severe loss of myelinated fibres. Smooth muscle in many viscera showed a hitherto undescribed focal hyaline degeneration. There were inflammatory changes in the autonomic ganglia in all cases and in or around bundles of unmyelinated nerve fibres in many. These findings suggest that there may be several different pathogenetic mechanisms involved in the development of autonomic neuropathy in diabetes.

Background:  Epithelial ovarian tumours (EOT) have complex clinicopathologic characteristics and biological behaviours. There are benign, borderline and malignant ovarian tumours and the commonest ovarian tumours in many regions are of epithelial origin. Many studies have described the histomorphological characteristics of the tumours. Objective: To describe the clinical and histopathological features of epithelial ovarian tumours. Methods: This was a retrospective review of the histopathology reports of all epithelial ovarian tumours specimens submitted to the Department of Morbid Anatomy and Forensic Medicine, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife from January 2005 to December 2014. The EOT cases were described in terms of age, clinicopathological characteristics and distribution of histological types. Results: The frequencies of benign, borderline and malignant EOTs were 41.2%, 3.9% and 54.9% respectively and the patients were aged 23 to 94 years (mean 46.5±2.6 years). The majority of cases were often asymptomatic. Conclusion: Abdominal swelling was the most common presenting complaint while serous ovarian tumours were the most preponderant histological types.