title: Kartagener's syndrome. Preliminary report on cilia structure, function, and upper airway symptoms.
abstract: Our study was designed to examine the motility and ultrastructure of cilia from the nose of patients with Kartagener's syndrome. Microphoto-oscillographic recording from single cells showed that the patients had in fact motile cilia, although the number was reduced. Asynchrony within the single cell was a more consistent feature. The first results of blind, quantitative microscopy showed the ultrastructural defects, described earlier, but the overlapping with a normal control group was considerable. Only one of nine patients had no dynein arms and completely immotile cilia; an observation which renders the term "the immotile-cilia syndrome" a misnomer. The ear-nose-throat symptoms were characterized by daily nose-blowings since birth, recurrent sinusitis, and chronic secretory otitis media. On the other hand, the frequency of acute purulent otitis media and of common colds appeared to be normal.
mesh_terms: D002923:Cilia / Q000502:physiology / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D006801:Humans; D007619:Kartagener Syndrome / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D009068:Movement; D009297:Nasal Mucosa / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000150:complications