Interleukin-8 [IL-8] in acute myocardial infarction: correlation with chlamydia pneumonia antibody seropositivity

This study was conducted to determine the relation between the chlamydia pneumoniae [CP] seropositivity and the serum levels of interleulcin-8 [IL-8] in patients with acute myocardial infarction [AMI]. The study included 77 Egyptian patients having AMI and 13 control healthy subjects of matched age and sex. CP antibody testing [IgM and IgG] was performed using indirect immunofluorescence test, together with IL-8 immunoassay in both patients and control. High titers of CP IgG antibodies were found in 55.8% of AMI patients [43 patients], while only one positive case [7.69%] was found in control group. Higher concentrations of IL-8 were found in AMI patients when compared with the control group. Also, the levels of IL-8 were higher among CP positive AMI patients when compared with negative cases. It was concluded that a high prevalence of anti-Chlamydia IgG antibodies was found among a group of AMI patients and also higher levels of IL-8 among CP positive cases was found. It can be suggested that CP chronic infection is implicated in these cases and it could be considered as a contributing factor for the persistence of elevated levels of the chemokine IL-8 in some of those patients

Antiphospholipid antibodies in patients with bilharzial pulmonary hypertension

This study was conducted on 21 patients having bilharzial pulmonary hypertension [BPH], 15 patients with BHS without pulmonary hypertension and 10 healthy subjects as a control group. The patients and controls were subjected to full clinical examination, abdominal ultrasound, plain chest X-ray electrocardiogram, echocardiography with Doppler and analytic methods including some liver function tests, CBC, ESR, coagulation profile, serum creatinine, urine and stool analysis, immunological tests for schistosomiasis [IHA], rectal snip, liver biopsy for pathological diagnosis of bilharziasis for most cases, ACL [IgG and IgM] and ANA. It was found that there was significant increased numbers and percentage age of positive cases of [both IgG and IgM] ACL and ANA in the group of BPH versus control and BPH versus BHS. There was significant correlation between ACL, ANA and ESR in the studied groups. It was concluded that there is an association between both ACL and ANA and the presence of pulmonary hypertension in the patients suggesting a possibility of an autoimmune process contributing to the development of pulmonary hypertension in bilharzial patients

Markers of autoimmunity in bilharzial patients having proteinuria

The study was conducted to evaluate the presence of antinuclear [ANA], antimitochondrial [AMA], antismooth muscle [ASM] and more importantly antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies [ANCA] in bilharzial patients having albuminuria versus patients not having albuminuria. Thirty-one patients were included in the study as well as 10 control healthy subjects. 15 patients had hepatosplenic bilharziasis with albuminuria and 16 patients without albuminuria. The autoantibodies measured by immunofluorescence were significantly higher among patients having albuminuria versus control group. While in patients not having albuminuria, only the ANA showed significantly higher positive cases versus control group. When the 2 groups of patients were compared to each other, there was non significant difference in antibodies positivity except in total ANCA and perinuclear ANCA [P-ANCA] which were higher among patients having hepatosplenic schistosomiasis and microalbuminuria. From these findings, it can be concluded that ANCA, especially P-ANCA could be considered as a marker of early glomerulopathy in bilharzial patients