Organization & Services
The EMG and Evoked Potentials Laboratory at University Hospital and the Neurodiagnostic Laboratory at The Kirklin Clinic offer routine and sophisticated electrodiagnostic testing. Approximately "4500" procedures are performed annually, including routine nerve conduction studies and needle EMG tests, repetitive nerve stimulation tests, single-fiber EMG, and other sophisticated studies. Evoked potential studies include brainstem auditory, visual, and somatosensory evoked potential testing. Intra-operative monitoring is available to assist with surgical cases. Monthly "Botox Clinics" provide treatment for patients with spasmodic torticollis and other dystonias, hemifacial spasm, and spasmodic dysphonia.
In our Muscle/Nerve Histopathology Laboratory, which is fully accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), "over 600" muscle and nerve biopsies are performed and/or interpreted annually. In addition to surgical specimens obtained in our lab, fresh and frozen biopsy tissue is received for processing and interpretation from many other area hospitals and laboratories in Alabama and other southeastern states. Histological and histochemical staining, electron miscroscopy, nerve fiber teasing and other procedures are performed and reports generated to assist with the diagnostic workup of diseases such as polymyositis, ALS, muscular dystrophy, vasculitis and CIDP.
New and established patients are evaluated and treated at weekly Neuromuscular Disease Outpatient Clinics located at The Kirklin Clinic, which provides convenient access to the diagnostic and therapeutic facilities of the Department and the UAB Medical Center. There are monthly Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), MG, and ALS Clinics directed and staffed by our physicians. Clinical trials of investigational drugs for Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS), CIDP, and myasthenia gravis are ongoing, and treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), plasmapheresis, and other therapies are available through our department. Research is in the clinical field with emphasis on new techniques of electrodiagnostic testing.