[The influence of general air cryotherapy on the serum lipid spectrum].

Analysis of the lipid status and oxidation of serum of blood lipids by free radicals was performed in the study involving practically healthy volunteers who underwent a course of general air cryotherapy. It was ahown that oxidized and modified lipoproteins play an important role in the etiopathogenetic mechanisms underlying the development of vasoconstrictive reactions and heat production processes in response to the short-term exposure to extremely low temperatures.

[Oxygen-transporting function of the blood following general air cryogenic therapy].

The present clinical and laboratory study of the effects of general air cryogenic therapy on the characteristics of blood supply included practically healthy subjects. The study has demonstrate that dosed cold stress promotes adaptive capacities of the organism by modulating the oxygen-transporting function of the blood that in its turn stimulates the adaptive mechanisms and leads to decoupling tissue respiration. It is concluded that general air cryogenic therapy can be recommended as an instrument for the improvement of endurance of and resistibility to the action of hypoxemia in special groups of people under the low temperature conditions.

Fibronectin, Cryoglobulinemia and Immune Complexes in Sjogren's Syndrome Patients.

The problem of proper diagnosis, patient's status and disease progression is very actual for autoimmune diseases. Still the diagnosis of Sjogren's syndrome is more state of art than of science. Our preliminary investigations showed that serum fibronectin of elevated molecular weight may be probably considered as one of the diagnostic criteria in Sjogren's syndrome patients. The increase of molecular weight of FN chains from 220 kDa to 250 kDa derives from relative and absolute elevation in a content of N-acetylglucosamine in FN carbohydrate chains. The present results concern the presence of FN in cryoprecipitates and circulating immune complexes in Sjogren's syndrome patients and as it has been demonstrated this parameter may be used as a prognostic sign.

Serum viscosity is a sensitive test for monitoring primary Sjögren syndrome.

Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is characterized by chronic inflammation, resulting in secondary changes in serum protein content. In an attempt to evaluate disease activity we have measured serum viscosity (SV) in 41 patients with pSS and compared SV with laboratory findings such as: total proteins, gamma-globulin concentrations, titre of rheumatoid factor (RF) and level of circulating immune complexes. SV was found to correlate with these laboratory parameters. The pSS patients with low serum viscosity had worse clinical abnormalities than those with the high SV. Thus SV affords a useful monitoring test for pSS patients.

[Cryoglobulinemia in Sjögren's syndrome]. / Krioglobulinemiia pri bolezni Shegrena.

As many as 130 patients with Sjögren's disease (SD) were examined for blood cryoglobulins during 1977-1982. Cryoglobulinemia was discovered in 25 (19.2%) patients with SD. The clinical manifestations such as severe xerostomia, appreciable increase of the parotid salivary glands, hepatosplenomegaly, purpura, polyneuropathy, lesions of the lungs and kidneys were mostly detectable in SD patients with cryoglobulinemia. Ten cryoprecipitates of SD patients with cryoglobulinemia showed the monoclonal immunoglobulins IgMk-9 and IgA-1. All the patients had high titers of antinuclear antibodies and 90% manifested antinuclear Ro/La antibodies. Over the 5-year period. SD patients with cryoglobulinemia manifested the growth of hepatosplenomegaly, ulcerous-necrotic vasculitis, polyneuropathy, polyneuritis, cerebral vasculitis, lesions of the lungs and kidneys. The development of the grave systemic manifestations of the disease was attended by a decrease of immunological activity and the rise of inflammatory activity. The 5-year survival of SD patients with cryoglobulinemia was 64% against 98% in SD patients without cryoglobulinemia (p less than 0.001).