Search results for "chemical and pharmacologic phenomena"
showing 10 items of 616 documents
Phantom Limb Pain in Daily Practice—Still a Lot of Work to Do!
2012
Objectives. Effective treatment of phantom limb pain (PLP, pain felt in the part of the body of an amputated limb) is still difficult to achieve, and improved treatment is needed. It is therefore of paramount interest to understand the current practice of PLP therapy outside pain centers. Design. As a part of a nationwide survey, 537 amputees were asked 11 questions related to their treatment experiences and the pain relief. Furthermore, the patients' opinion about the quality of medical care was also asked. Results. Five hundred thirty-seven out of 1088 amputees returned the questionnaire (49.4%). Four hundred (74.5%) suffered from PLP. The patients rated their caregivers' knowledge about …
Generation of cytotoxic T-cell responses with synthetic melanoma-associated peptidesin vivo: Implications for tumor vaccines with melanoma-associated…
1996
Peptide epitopes derived from differentiation antigens of the melanocyte lineage have been identified in human melanomas and normal cultured melanocytes as targets for MHC-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). Characterization of multiple CTL-defined antigenic determinants and the presence of corresponding precursor CTL open perspectives for the development of antigen-based vaccines. In the present study, we determined the CTL reactivity against melanoma-associated peptides derived from Melan A/MART-1, tyrosinase and gp100/Pmel17 in 10 HLA-A2+ melanoma patients and 10 healthy individuals. Then, we examined the immunological effects and toxicity of intradermal inoculation of synthetic me…
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…
A CTLA4high genotype is associated with myasthenia gravis in thymoma patients
2005
Myasthenia gravis (MG) in thymoma patients depends critically on intratumorous generation and export of mature autoreactive CD4+ T cells. Why non-MG thymomas fail to produce CD4+ T cells is unknown. We studied three single-nucleotide polymorphisms of the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated antigen 4(CTLA4) gene in thymoma patients, nonthymoma early-onset MG patients, and control subjects. Surprisingly, the CTLA4high genotype +49A/A, which is protective against several autoimmune diseases, exerted a prominent predisposing effect to paraneoplastic MG in thymoma patients. The unusual disease association with a CTLA4high genotype implies a unique pathogenesis of paraneoplastic MG, with high CTLA4…
Static magnetic fields generated by a 0.5T MRI unit affects in vitro expression of activation markers and interleukin release in human peripheral blo…
2001
To investigate the effects of the static magnetic field (SMF) generated by a 0.5 T superconducting MRI unit on in vitro activation marker expression and interleukin release in human peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples from healthy volunteers.PBMC samples were split into two groups: exposed and sham-exposed under isothermal conditions. PBMC were exposed for 2 h at 24 degrees C to the SMF of a 0.5 T superconducting MRI unit. Immediately after exposure, both samples were cultured for 24 h at 37 degrees C with or without mitogenic stimulation by phytohaemagglutinin (PHA). PBMC were examined for expression of CD25, CD69 and CD71 by immunofluorescence analysis and supernatants were a…
Differential regulation of Fas-mediated apoptosis in both thyrocyte and lymphocyte cellular compartments correlates with opposite phenotypic manifest…
2001
Several mechanisms are probably involved in determining the evolution of autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) towards either hypothyroidism and the clinical syndrome known as Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) or toward hyperthyroidism and the symptoms of Graves' disease (GD). To gain further insight into such mechanisms we performed an exhaustive comparative analysis of the expression of key molecules regulating cell death (Fas, Fas ligand [FasL], Bcl-2) and apoptosis in both thyrocytes and thyroid infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) from patients with either GD or HT. GD thyrocytes expressed less Fas/FasL than HT thyrocytes, whereas GD TILs had higher levels of Fas/FasL than HT TILs. GD thyrocytes exp…
Immunoregulatory T-lymphocyte subset deficiency in newly diagnosed Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus
1984
Humoral and cell-mediated disorders in Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes suggest that an imbalance of immunoregulatory T-cell subsets exists. In 23 newly diagnosed (onset less than 3 months) and 21 long-standing Type 1 diabetic patients, T lymphocyte subsets were analyzed using monoclonal antibodies (OKT3, OKT4, OKT8, OKM1). The newly diagnosed patients showed a reduction with a significant difference from healthy controls in total T cells (OKT3+: 58.1 +/- 8.5% versus 70.7 +/- 8.0%), helper/inducer cells (OKT4+: 33.8 +/- 7.0% versus 47.1 +/- 8.3%), suppressor/cytotoxic cells (OKT8+: 18.5 +/- 7.3% versus 32 +/- 6.8%) and monocytes (OKM1+: 11.5 +/- 3.8% versus 19.9 +/- 5.2%) (p less than 0.…
Memory B Cell Subpopulations in the Aged
2006
The literature on immunosenescence has focused mainly on T cell impairment. With the aim of gaining insight into B cell immunosenescence, the authors investigated the serum IgD levels in 24 young and 21 old people and analyzed their relationship with the number of CD19 CD27 memory cells. Serum IgD were quantified by the use of radial immunodiffusion and the lymphocyte population CD19 CD27 was identified by a FACScan flow cytometer. Serum IgD levels were significantly lower (p 0.0001) in old subjects, and the percentage of CD19 CD27 lymphocytes were significantly increased (p 0.01) in old subjects. Finally, a significant negative correlation was found (p 0.01) between serum concentrations of…
Neural correlates of an attentional bias to health-threatening stimuli in individuals with pathological health anxiety
2017
Background: An attentional bias to health-threat stimuli is assumed to represent the primary pathogenetic factor for the development and maintenance of pathological health anxiety (PHA; formerly termed “hypochondriasis”). However, little is known about the neural basis of this attentional bias in individuals with PHA.Methods: A group of patients with PHA, a group of depressed patients and a healthy control group completed an emotional Stroop task with health-threat (body symptom and illness) words and neutral control words while undergoing functional MRI.Results: We included 33 patients with PHA, 28 depressed patients and 31 controls in our analyses. As reflected in reaction times, patients…
The in vitro addition of methotrexate and/or methylprednisolone determines peripheral reduction in Th17 and expansion of conventional Treg and of IL-…
2014
The aim of our study was to evaluate methotrexate (MTX) and methylprednisolone (MP) effect on peripheral Th17 and Treg subsets in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We enrolled 15 patients (10 early RA and 5 long-standing disease) with active RA and 10 age-matched healthy donors as controls. Frequencies of Th17 and Treg were quantified using flow cytometry before and after in vitro addition of MTX, MP or both drugs. Our results showed a reduction in the overall Th17 population followed by an increase in Th17 IL-10+ and Treg, after in vitro treatment of PBMCs with the drugs in patients with early RA. Long-standing disease patients showed a less evident increase in Treg cells and less e…