[Complimentary use of needle electromyography and ultrasonography of tongue is effective for early detection of abnormality in 20 patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis].

A group of 20 consecutive patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) were evaluated using electromyography (EMG) and ultrasonography (US) of the tongue. Their records were reviewed retrospectively for the rates at which abnormalities were detected by these two modalities as well as their clinical features. Visual inspection detected abnormalities in 9 of 20 patients, EMG in 12, and US in 6. However, EMG detected active denervation earlier than did US in 7 of the 12 EMG-diagnosed patients, and US detected fasciculation earlier than did EMG in 1 of the 6 US-diagnosed patients. Thus, we cannot replace EMG completely with US. Indeed, we currently use both methods complementarily at our hospital.