Spindly leg syndrome in Atelopus varius is linked to environmental calcium and phosphate availability.

Spindly leg syndrome (SLS) is a relatively common musculoskeletal abnormality associated with captive-rearing of amphibians with aquatic larvae. We conducted an experiment to investigate the role of environmental calcium and phosphate in causing SLS in tadpoles. Our 600-tadpole experiment used a fully-factorial design, rearing Atelopus varius tadpoles in water with either high (80mg/l CaCO3), medium (50mg/l CaCO3), or low calcium hardness (20mg/l CaCO3), each was combined with high (1.74 mg/l PO4) or low (0.36 mg/l PO4) phosphate levels. We found that calcium supplementation significantly improved tadpole survival from 19% to 49% and that low calcium treatments had 60% SLS that was reduced to about 15% at the medium and high calcium treatments. Phosphate supplementation significantly reduced SLS prevalence in low calcium treatments. This experimental research clearly links SLS to the calcium: phosphate homeostatic system, but we were unable to completely eliminate the issue, suggesting an interactive role of other unidentified factors.

Tanycytic ependymoma in a 76-year-old Puerto Rican male.

Ependymoma is a slowly growing tumor in children and young adults originating from the wall of the ventricles or from the spinal canal that is composed of neoplastic ependymal cells. Tanycytic ependymoma is a rare variant of ependymoma usually arising in the intra medullary spine. The World Health Organization classifies the tanycytic ependymoma as a grade II tumor. The diagnosis of tanycytic ependymoma is challenging since the morphology of the lesions resemble those found in schwannoma and astrocytomas. In the present study, we show a case of a 76 years old male with a progressive paraparesis for 8 years, due to a spinal tumor. Radiological and histological studies were used to classify the tumor as tanycytic ependymoma. Therefore, it is important to be aware of tanycytic ependymoma and its immunohistochemistry profile in older patients, especially within the Caribbean Hispanic population. To our knowledge this is the oldest patient known to have this rare tumor and the first case reported in Puerto Rico.