Search results for "BODIES"
showing 10 items of 2217 documents
Cryptic Leishmania infantum infection in Italian HIV infected patients.
2008
Abstract Background Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a protozoan diseases caused in Europe by Leishmania (L.) infantum. Asymptomatic Leishmania infection is more frequent than clinically apparent disease. Among HIV infected patients the risk of clinical VL is increased due to immunosuppression, which can reactivate a latent infection. The aims of our study were to assess the prevalence of asymptomatic L. infantum infection in HIV infected patients and to study a possible correlation between Leishmania parasitemia and HIV infection markers. Methods One hundred and forty-five HIV infected patients were screened for the presence of anti-Leishmania antibodies and L. infantum DNA in peripheral blo…
Symptoms and complications of pertussis in adults
1995
There is increasing evidence that pertussis occurs frequently in adults, but there is limited information on the clinical course of this disease beyond childhood. A household contact study on the efficacy of an acellular pertussis vaccine was used to study the symptoms of pertussis in adults. Among 257 patients with pertussis identified in 121 families during a two-year period in one study center with a low whole-cell pertussis-vaccine uptake, 79 (30.7%) were adults, aged 19–83 years (mean age: 36 years) with a 1:1.8 male to female ratio. Ninety-one percent of the adults suffered from coughing (mean duration: 54 days), and in 80% this cough lasted ≥ 21 days. Whoops were rare (8%), whereas c…
Specific IgE against Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxins: an independent risk factor for asthma.
2012
The role of IgE in patients with severe asthma is not fully understood.We sought to investigate whether IgE to Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxins might be relevant to disease severity in adult asthmatic patients.Specific IgE antibody concentrations in serum against enterotoxins, grass pollen (GP), and house dust mite allergens and total IgE levels were measured in adult cohorts of 69 control subjects, 152 patients with nonsevere asthma, and 166 patients with severe asthma. Severe asthma was defined as inadequately controlled disease despite high-dose inhaled corticosteroids plus at least 2 other controller therapies, including oral steroids.Enterotoxin IgE positivity was significantly great…
Are laboratory tests useful for monitoring the activity of lupus nephritis? A 6-year prospective study in a cohort of 228 patients with lupus nephrit…
2008
Objectives:To evaluate the role of immunological tests for monitoring lupus nephritis (LN) activity.Methods:C3, C4, anti-dsDNA and anti-C1q antibodies were prospectively performed over 6 years in 228 patients with LN.Results:In membranous LN only anti-C1q antibodies differentiated proteinuric flares from quiescent disease (p = 0.02). However, in this group 46% of flares occurred with a normal value of anti-C1q antibodies versus 20% in proliferative LN (p = 0.02). In patients with antiphospholipid antibodies (APL), 33% of flares occurred with normal levels of anti-C1q antibodies versus 14.5% in patients that were APL-negative (p = 0.02). In proliferative LN, anti-C1q antibodies showed a slig…
Brief Report: Inhibition of interleukin-6 function corrects Th17/Treg cell imbalance in patients with rheumatoid arthritis
2012
OBJECTIVE: From an immunologic standpoint, the mechanisms by which treatment with tocilizumab (TCZ), a humanized anti-interleukin-6 (anti-IL-6) receptor antibody, results in improvement in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients are still not fully understood. In vitro studies and studies in mouse models have demonstrated the critical role of IL-6 in Th17 cell differentiation. Th17 lymphocytes have been shown to be strongly involved in RA pathogenesis, and the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of IL-6 blockade on the balance between Th17 cells and Treg cells in patients with active RA. METHODS: Patients with active RA for whom TCZ had been prescribed by a rheumatologist were en…
Neutralizing antibody and clinical status of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals
1989
An assay based on inhibition of cytopathic effect of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) strains in Molt 4 cells was developed to quantitate neutralizing antibodies (NA) in sera of HIV-infected individuals. The assay was specific and gave results comparable to those obtained by the inhibition of immunofluorescence (IFI) and reverse transcriptase (RT) activity. Attempts were made to correlate the presence and the antibody titres with the clinical status of HIV-infected individuals classified according to Walter Reed staging classification scheme. NA titres correlated inversely with the stage of HIV infection: Compared with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) patients, HIV-infected subje…
Deficiency of the autoimmune regulator AIRE in thymomas is insufficient to elicit autoimmune polyendocrinopathy syndrome type 1 (APS‐1)
2007
Thymomas are thymic epithelial neoplasms, associated with a variety of autoimmune disorders (especially myasthenia gravis), that apparently result from aberrant intra-tumourous thymopoiesis and export of inefficiently tolerized T-cells to the periphery. The autoimmune regulator (AIRE) drives the expression of self-antigens in the thymic medulla and plays an essential role in ‘central’ tolerance in both humans and mice. However, while inactivating AIRE mutations result in the ‘autoimmune polyendocrinopathy syndrome type 1’ (APS-1), its major features are not well reproduced in AIRE-knock-out mice. Therefore, alternative human disease scenarios with concomitant AIRE deficiency may be valuable…
Survey of autoantibody responses against tumor-associated antigens in thyroid cancer
2014
Background Autoantibodies against tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) have been shown to serve as highly specific serological biomarkers for the diagnosis of various solid cancers. Although the autoimmunity against thyroid tissue specific antigens has been studied extensively, so far, the autoantibody responses against common TAAs such as cancer-testis antigens (CTAs), mutated or differentiation antigens have not been comprehensively analyzed in patients with thyroid cancer. Objective The current study aims to characterize the frequency of autoantibody responses against common TAAs in patients with thyroid cancer and benign thyroid nodules. Methods A phage-displayed antigen microarray comprisi…
Prophylactic transfer of CD8-depleted donor lymphocytes after T-cell–depleted reduced-intensity transplantation
2006
AbstractAllogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (SCT) regimens incorporating the lymphocytotoxic CD52 antibody alemtuzumab demonstrate efficient engraftment and reduced graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). However, these protocols substantially impair posttransplantation antiviral and antitumor immunity. To accelerate immune reconstitution after alemtuzumab-based reduced-intensity SCT, we administered prophylactic CD8-depleted donor lymphocyte infusions (DLIs) starting on days 60 and 120 after transplantation. DLIs were processed in an immunomagnetic good manufacturing practice depletion procedure resulting in a 2.5- to 6-log reduction in CD8 T cells. Of 23 high-risk patients with h…
Circulating VEGF reduction, response and outcome in advanced colorectal cancer patients treated with cetuximab plus irinotecan
2007
Objective: We designed this trial to investigate if modifications in levels of circulating vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) may be related to clinical response and outcome in advanced colorectal cancer patients during treatment with a weekly combination of cetuximab plus irinotecan. Methods: A total of 45 heavily pretreated metastatic colorectal cancer patients were prospectively evaluated for circulating levels of VEGF during the treatment with cetuximab plus weekly irinotecan. VEGF circulating levels were assessed at the following time points: just before and at 1, 21, 50 and 92 days after the start of cetuximab plus irinotecan treatment. Results: Basal VEGF median levels were s…