[Ophthalmoplegic myopathy].

Data of a clinico-morphological examination of 4 patients with the ophthalmoplegic form of myopathy are presented. An electronmicroscopic examination has made it possible to disclose the primary morphological defect in the mitochondria of the patients' muscles. The mitochondrial pathology manifested itself in an increase of the number of these organelles, changes of their shape and size, structural abnormalities and presence of inclusions. The pathology of the mitochondria in muscular fibres with normal structure of the latter's contractile apparatus, gradual destruction of the mitochondria, and deepening of the destructive changes in the mitochondria in parallel to the lysis of the myofibrillary apparatus give one grounds to speak about the primary character of the mitochondrial pathology in those patients, and to regard this disease as a variant of mitochondrial myopathies.