ABSTRACT
Post-transplant membranoprolifertive glomerulonephritis(MPGN), due to hepatitis C virus, is a serious immunecomplex disease with potential for both kidney and liver loss.Treatment with corticosteroids and immunosuppressive canactivate viral infection and the use of interferon alpha caninduce acute rejection of the transplanted liver. In this casereport; a lady, with hepatitis C genotype 4, had developedsevere nephrotic syndrome with progressive renal failure dueto MBGN following liver transplant. Initially, she had receivedHarvoni (Ledipasvir/sofosbuvir) 90/400 mg daily for 12 weeks.Despite, clearance of hepatitis C viremia, she did not improve.Hence, Rituximab was started. Fortunately, her renal failureand nephrotic state improved without activation of hepatitis Cinfection or induction of rejection.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Takayasu's Arteritis and Horton's Arteritis are two rare cases of auto-immune complex diseases resulting in sterile inflammatory reactions affecting the wall of large and medium sized arteries. Various radiological and interventional methods employed are inconclusive and become diagnostic only when complications begin to set in. The new non-invasive hybrid Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography (PET/CT) using 18Florine-Fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) imaging technique could detect arteritis in an early clinical stage when routine conventional cross-sectional imaging was inconclusive. Method: Two cases from Klagenfurt Hospital, Austria and Milan General Hospital, Italy were compared with image acquisition being done in the respective hospitals. In Klagenfurt, PET/CT image acquisition was performed using intravenous contrast administration and in Milan, CT parameters were used as attenuation correction and anatomical correlation of PET images. Results: CT performed using both methods, with or without iodinated contrast media, were useful in detecting arteritis. Conclusion: It is concluded that PET/CT aside from being a useful tool in cancer imaging, is also useful for pyrexia of unknown origin. PET/CT should be employed early in managing this clinical condition where arteritis is a possible diagnosis.
ABSTRACT
This paper presents plasma exchange(P.E) therapy in 8 cases of four types of immunic diseaes. The colony forming unit-T lymphocyte (TL-CFU), the symbol T-cell subsets with monoclone antibody (McAb), and the cisrculating immune complex (CIC)were examined before and after the therapy of P.E. and compared with the interelationship of each other. The experiments indicated that plasmapheresis may remove the CIC and noxious autoantibodies and regulation of the action of cellular immunity. All these functions are synthetic therapeutic effects. The indices of checkup on therapeutics were: TL-CFU, CIC and the ratio of T_H and T_S. After plasmaphersis, the ratio of CIC was lowered but the TL was higer than before (P
ABSTRACT
Nitrogen mustard encapsulated with liposomes was administered to the rabbits with acute experimental serum sickness(AESS). Then the serum levels of anti-BSA antibodies and circulating; immune complex(CIC), CH50, and WBC count were determined. The ACPase activity of spleen macrophages was measured. And the sections of renal tissues, after HE-stained, were studied for the accumulation of CIC and the pathological changes. It was found that liposome-encapsulated nitrogen mustard can increase the macrophage activity and in turn aggravate the renal damages of AESS rabbits.The results suggest that the renal damages of AESS rabbits can immunopatholo-gically be attributed to the increased activity of macrophages.
ABSTRACT
This paper is accritical review as well as a comprehensive summarization of the research work done by the author and his team in the past few years. The important achievements they have obtained are. 1. the protective role of the complement system in experimental acute serum sickness has bsen identified, the participation of T lymphocytes to the pathology of immune complex diseases defined, and the cal-modulin mediation of immune complex inflammation clarified, and 2. several drugs including levamisole, cimetidine, goat-antirabbit thymocyte globulin, prostaglandin E2 and anisodamine were screened for their therapeutic efficiency on experimental acute serum sickness, which provides a clue for the further study on the treatment of immune complex diseases.