ABSTRACT
Background: Antiphospholipid antibodies have been found in the sera from patients with idiopathic and secondary glomerulopathies, mainly related to lupus. No special attention has been devoted to idiopathic membranous nephropathy, a glomerular disease with a high frequency of thrombotic complications, particularly of the renal vein. Aim: To study the presence and significance of antiphospholipid antibodies in idiopathic membranous nephropathy. Material and methods: Anticardiolipin and anti-ß2-glycoprotein-I IgG antibodies were measured in serum samples from 21 patients with idiopathic membranous nephropathy (age range 11-75 years, 5 female). The medical records of 20 of these patients were reviewed, looking for vascular complications and nephrological evolution during a follow-up period that ranged from two to 277 months. Results: Five patients had anticardiolipin antibody titers over the cutoff for normal values, and two others were positive for anti-ß2-glycoprotein-I, without cross-reactivity. There was no difference in the incidence of thrombotic complications in the renal vein, or other locations, between these seven patients and the remaining patients. No differences in the clinical course of the nephropathy were detected either. Conclusions: Antiphospholipid antibodies may be found in patients with primary membranous nephropathy. They are not related to thrombosis or a worse evolution.
Subject(s)
Adolescent , Adult , Male , Humans , Female , Child , Middle Aged , Antibodies, Anticardiolipin/blood , Glomerulonephritis, Membranous/complications , Glomerulonephritis, Membranous/immunology , Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic/complications , Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic/immunology , Thrombosis/diagnosis , Thrombosis/immunologyABSTRACT
Fluoroquinolone-associated tendinitis are well described in the literature, but these are not frequently observed and usually are related to the oldest fluoroquinolones. Levofloxacin is a recently introduced fluoroquinolone. In this paper we report four cases (three female, aged 39 to 70 years old) of Achilles tendinitis occurring in a period of few months. Two patients on chronic dialysis, one kidney transplant recipient, and one patient with chronic vasculitis, both with normal renal function. All were chronically using corticosteroids. In the four cases, tendinitis had an acute onset with bilateral involvement and was invalidating. In 3 cases the onset of tendinitis was early during levofloxacin treatment and in 1 case, it began 10 days after the end of the treatment. All patients were treated with rest and physiotherapy, two were treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. All patients had a complete recovery alter 3-8 weeks
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Adult , Female , Middle Aged , Ofloxacin , Tendinopathy , Adrenal Cortex Hormones , Diabetes Mellitus , Drug Interactions , Renal Insufficiency, Chronic/complications , Achilles Tendon/injuriesABSTRACT
The aim of this work was to study the prevalence of bacterial infections in hospitalized patients with liver cirrhosis and to compare clinical, bacteriological and evolution features of patients with (group 1) and without bacterial infection (group 2). 132 hospitalized patients with liver cirrhosis were prospectively studied and 61 episodes of bacterial infections were diagnosed in 52 (27 spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (44.3 per cent) 16 urinary tract infections (26.2 per cent), 10 pneumonias (16.4 per cent), 3 spontaneous bacteremias (4.9 per cent) and 5 miscellaneous infections (8.2 per cent)). 26 per cent of infections were nosocomial. Child-Pugh score was 12 ñ 2 in group 1 vs 10 ñ 2 in group 2 (p=0.047). 65 per cent of identified microorganisms were gram negative and 61.5 per cent of these were E. coli. Hospital mortality of group 1 was 29 per cent and that of group 2 was 9 per cent (p=0.002). It is concluded that there is a high prevalence of bacterial infections in hospitalized cirrhotic patients, that is associated to a high mortality