Low Serum Pancreatitis-Associated Protein Does not Exclude Complications in Mild Acute Pancreatitis.

Normal serum PAP levels on admission to the hospital in patiens with acute pancreatitis has been proposed to help select the patients who are not going to develop complications. The aims of this study were, first, to assess the specificity of serum pancreatitis associated protein (PAP) serology test and second, to evalute the usefulness of the test for prediciting complications in acute pancreatitis on admission to the hospital. The sensitivity of the PAP ELISA in patiens with acute pancreatitis on admission to the hospital was 70% and the serum PAP levels significantly higher than in healthy controls (p < 0.0001). However, the serum PAP levels in patients with acute pancreatitis were not significantly different from values in patients with various abdominal diseases (p < 0.58). Serum PAP levels gave good correlation to APACHE II (p = 0.02) and CRP (p = 0.01). Two patients with local complications (necrotizing pancreatitis, pancreatic fluid collection) had elevated serum PAP levels on admission to the hospital (> 100 ng/ml). The diagnostic specififity of PAP ELISA is low. Patients, who develop local complications in acute pancreatitis can not be excluded by normal serum PAP levels on admission to the hospital.

Amount and Avidity of IgG Antibodies to Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Exotoxin A Antigen in Cystic Fibrosis Patients.

Amount and avidity of serum IgG antibodies to Pseudomonas aeruginosa exotoxin A in sera of 31 patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) was studied. Eight patients had P. aeruginosa isolated from the sputum on multiple occasions, while from 23 patients no P. aeruginosa was isolated. Amount of IgG antibodies to P. aeruginosa exotoxin A were significantly increased in the serum of patients with P. aeruginosa pulmonary colonization (p<0.0001). On the contrary, serum IgG avidity in the colonized and in the non-colonized CF patients was low (<10) and was statistically different when compared to the 30 age-matched healthy controls (p<0.0001). There was no change in IgG avidity in six chronically infected CF patients from whom we obtained serum samples after half a year period (p=0,55).

Immunohistochemical Expression of N-ras Oncogene is a Late Event in Head and Neck Carcinomas.

This study investigated the expression of the N-ras oncogene in routinely processed tissue sections from 133 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) by immunohistochemistry using anti-N-ras monoclonal antibody. N-ras expression was present in 67 of 133 (49.6%) cases. There was a highly significant correlation between N-ras expression and clinical stage of disease (P=0.003). This study confirmed that overexpression of the N-ras oncogene is common in SCCHN and that it may be an important event in the late stage of disease.

nm23-H1 Expression in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck.

Archival material from 47 patients with primary squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) was studied immunohistochemically for the presence of nm23-H1 protein. Our data indicate that nm23-H1 protein expression is a common event in SCCHN and that there is a trend toward correlation of increased expression of nm23-H1 with increasing tumor size (p = 0.072). The results also show that when adjusting for age and cause of death, there tended to be an inverse relationship between overall survival and the expression of nm23-H1 gene in the primary tumor (p = 0.088).