Porphyric neuropathy: a clinical, neurophysiological and morphological study.

A case of neuropathy in the course of an attack of acute intermittent porphyria was studied from the neurophysiological and morphological points of view. The neurophysiological findings (acute neuropathy with almost complete denervation despite normal or slightly reduced conduction velocity) and the morphological findings (no segmental demyelination after teasing, conservation of the linear fiber diameter/internodal distance ratio, mainly axonal damage on ultrastructural study) seem to indicate that the disease process is chiefly an axonal neuropathy.