0000000001185742
AUTHOR
Chiara Bonaguri
Overcoming a “Probable” Diagnosis in Antimitochondrial Antibody Negative Primary Biliary Cirrhosis: Study of 100 Sera and Review of the Literature
Serum anti-mitochondrial antibodies (AMA) are the serological hallmark of primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), yet up to 15% of PBC sera are AMA negative at routine indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) while being referred to as “probable” cases. The diagnostic role of PBC-specific antinuclear antibodies (ANA) remains to be determined. We will report herein data on the accuracy of new laboratory tools for AMA and PBC-specific ANA in a large series of PBC sera that were AMA-negative at IIF. We will also provide a discussion of the history and current status of AMA detection methods. We included IIF AMA-negative PBC sera (n = 100) and sera from patients with other chronic liver diseases (n = 104) th…
Effects of acute exercise and allopurinol administration on soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR).
Background Although physical exercise acutely increases the most widely used inflammatory biomarkers, there is no information on its effect on soluble urokinase plasminogen activating receptor (suPAR), a circulating biomarker increasingly used for the assessment of systemic inflammation. Methods suPAR was assessed with the quantitative suPARnostic Standard ELISA Assay (Virogates, Birkerod, Denmark) in 12 professional football players before and after a football match. The athletes were divided into two experimental groups. An oral dose of 300 mg of allopurinol was administered to one group of six participants four hours before a match; the other six participants received placebo. Results Se…
Therapeutic monitoring of autoantibodies Tumor Necrosis Factor α inhibitor drugs: Efficacy and benefit for patients with autoimmune diseases
Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) is a proinflammatory cytokine involved in the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, Chron's disease and ulcerative colitis. TNFα inhibitors (anti-TNFα) are monoclonal antibodies drugs directed against TNFα (i.e. adalimumab, infliximab, etarnecept, golimumab and certolizumab). Their effect consists in reducing the inflammatory response of autoimmune diseases. Several randomized controlled trials and observational studies evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of these drugs and reported a clear benefit for patients affected by chronic inflammatory disease treated with anti-TNFα, …
Effects of acute exercise and xanthine oxidase inhibition on novel cardiovascular biomarkers.
Several sports have been associated with a postexercise increase of cardiac, liver, and skeletal muscle biomarkers of injury. Exhaustive or acute physical exercise causes an increased generation of reactive oxygen species, resulting in cellular injury. Thus, exercise and training may trigger pathophysiological changes in serum concentrations of a variety of biomarkers. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the variation of novel biomarkers of stress and cardiovascular disease such as copeptin, midregional part of proadrenomedullin (MR-proADM), growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15), soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor, and placental growth factor along with uric acid before …