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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.
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Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) holds a holistic theory, and specializes in balancing disordered human body using numerous natural products, particularly Chinese herbal formulae. TCM has certain treatment advantages for patients suffering from various complex diseases. However, due to the complex nature of TCM, it remains difficult to unveil such holistic medicine by the current reductionism research strategies, which treat both herbal ingredients and targets in isolation. Recently, an emerging network pharmacology approach has been introduced to tackle this bottleneck problem. A TCM-derived novel therapeutic concept, "network target", which is different from the Western medicine's "onetarget" concept, has been proposed from China. The network target strategy is able to illustrate the complex interactions among the biological systems, drugs, and complex diseases from a network perspective, and thus provides an innovative approach to access ancient remedies in a precision manner and at a systematic level, which also highlights TCM's potential in current medical systems.
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Humanos , Medicina de Hierbas , Medicina Tradicional ChinaRESUMEN
This article elaborated the theory of chronic and complex disease treatment based on collaterals. It put forward that complex virtual evil stasis was the common pathogenesis of chronic and complex disease treatment. Combined with articles published in recent 5 years, from the perspective of cytokines and genes, it summarized traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) compound targets in chronic and complex disease treatment. It put forward the transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGFs), matrix metalloproteinases/tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (MMPs/TIMPs) were its high-frequency targets. It provided a basis for future experiment design on chronic and complex disease treatment based on collaterals as well as new drug development.
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Introduction: In spite nearly 40% of the variability in blood pressure can be explained by genetic factors, the identification of genes associated to essential high blood pressure is difficult in populations where individuals have different genetic precedents; in these circumstances it is necessary to determinate whether the population is sub-structured because this can bias studies associated with this disease.Objectives: To determine the genetic structure of the population in Bucaramanga from genetic polymorphisms associated with the regulation of blood pressure: 448G>T, 679C>T y 1711C>T from the gene kinase 4 of the dopaminergic receptor linked to the protein G and Glu298Asp, -786T>C and the VNTR of the intron 4 of the gene of endothelial nitric oxide.Methodology: A sample of 552 unrelated individuals was studied through analysis of Restriction fragment length polymorphism. The allelic, haplotypic and genotypic frequencies were calculated, the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was determined and a molecular analysis of variance was performed to determine the genetic structure.Results: 38 Haplotypes were identified, with GCCTG4b as the most frequent (21.2%). The most diverse polymorphism was 448G>T with a frequency of 49.9% for heterozygous. The six polymorphisms were found in genetic equilibrium and genetic structure of populations was not evidenced (FST = 0,0038).Conclusion: The population studied does not present a genetic sub-structure and the polymorphisms analyzed were found in genetic equilibrium, this indicates that the population mixes randomly and there are no sub-groups capable of affecting the results of the association studies
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Humanos , Presión Arterial , Hipertensión , GenéticaRESUMEN
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.
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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
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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.
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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.