Protein C and microalbuminuria in insulin dependent diabetic children

The aim of this study was to assess one of the coagulation parameters, protein C, in insulin-dependent diabetic children and to find out its relation to the development of vascular changes manifested by microalbuminuria and to the glycemic control indices in diabetic children. The study was performed on 46 children including 24 diabetic patients with normoalbuminuria [mean age 11.2 +/- 1.9 years], 10 patients with microalbuminuria [mean age 13.5 +/- 1.23 years] and 12 healthy children of comparable age and sex with the patients as a control group. All children were subjected to full history taking, thorough physical examination, anthropometric assessment, fundus examination and laboratory investigations including a measurement of complete blood picture [CBC], fasting blood sugar [FBS], glycosylated hemoglobin [HbA1c], cholesterol [CH], triglycerides [TG], microalbuminuria and protein C [PC] levels. There was a highly significant increase in plasma PC level in diabetic children when compared with the controls and this increase was significantly more in microalbuminuric than in normoalbuminuric children. Moreover, PC level was significantly positively correlated with the duration of the disease and with other parameters and indices of diabetic control including HbA1c, CH, TG and microalbuminuria, which indicated that PC assessment could be used as a predictor of development of vascular complications as atherosclerosis and nephropathy in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

Identification of non specific esterase isoenzyme patterns by iso-electric focus in acute leukemias

Forty-four individuals, 32 patients with acute leukemia [32 with ANLL and 7 with ALL] representing group and 12 subjects [8 healthy individuals were randomly selected as a control group and 4 with CLL]. From 8 healthy controls, purified granulocyte and monocyte preparations were isolated to identify the normal non-specific esterase isoe-lectric focusing [IEF] for each cell type. Four patients known to have CLL [3 with B-CLL and 1 with T - CLL] were chosen for preparation of B and T-lymphocytes and used as control lymphocyte pattern. To all patients complete hemogram, cytochemical stains for peripheral blood and bone marrow smears [myeloperoxidase, periodic acid shiff, specific and nonspecific esterases] were performed. Identification of nonspecific esterase isoenzyme pattern for each cytologic type of leukemia using isoelectric focusing of anaphthyl acetate esterase on polyacry-lamide gel [PAG] was also done. Our results showed that nonspecific esterase zymograms identified consistent and distinctive isoenzymatic patterns that were characteristic for each type of leukemia. This work showed that despite different isoenzyme patterns displayed by ALL zymograms, they were easily distinct from ANLL zymograms. Moreover, our results provided further evidence for the herte-rogeneity of ANAE in AML and AMML and that NaF inhibition of ANAE reactions have little diagnostic application in the assessment of monocytic involvement. Conversely, the use of NaF with IEF was found to be essential in the differentiation between various types of leukemia