[Acute pancreatitis: clinical and therapeutic study with somatostatin]. / Pancreatitis aguda: estudio clínico y terapéutico con somatostatina.

A clinical and therapeutical study of 47 patients with the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis is reported. According to Ranson's criteria patients were initially classified as suffering from mild (28) and severe (18) acute pancreatitis. Twenty-eight, 11, 7 and 1 patients had biliary, alcoholic, idiopathic and neoplastic causes, respectively, of their conditions. The classification of episodes was made on the basis of clinical manifestations, biologic investigations, and imaging diagnosis, and is shown in the corresponding tables. The therapeutic profile was a randomized double-blind study: perfused somatostatin (SS) versus placebo (P) (physiologic saline 0.9%). The administration of somatostatin in perfusion (250 mcg/h/48 hours) did not improve significantly the parameters used to score the severity, although the mortality rate decreased significantly (p < 0.05) in the group of patients with the severe form of the disease.

[The incidence of the antiphospholipid syndrome in the clinical and biological manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus]. / Incidencia del síndrome antifosfolípido en las manifestaciones clínicas y biológicas del lupus eritematoso sistémico.

In the present investigation a study was made on the incidence of antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) on clinical and biological manifestations in a series or 32 patients (28 females and 4 males with a mean age of 25 years) diagnosed of SLE (ARA criteria) and APS (Harris criteria) compared with a group of 25 patients (19 females and 6 males with a mean age of 38 years) diagnosed of SLE without APS. This entails a selection from 124 patients diagnosed of SLE, and an incidence of 25.8% and 9.7% for ACA and LA, respectively. After a clinical protocol was filled, a complete immunological profile was obtained, with lymphocyte subsets, IL-2 receptor, coagulation study, isotype determination for anticardiolipin antibody (ACA), lupus anticoagulant (LA), serology for syphilis and imaging diagnostic techniques. Comparative results, with an statistic assessment, are shown in tables. It is concluded that SLE + APS population can be considered as definite for a peculiar SLE subtype.

[Comparative study between seric I pepsinogen and seric gastrin, in the differentiation of the different types and localizations of chronic gastritis]. / Estudio comparativo de pepsinógeno I sérico y gastrina sérica en la diferenciación de los distintos tipos y localizaciones de gastritis crónica.

The present work analyzes the serie levels of pepsinogen I (PG I) and gastrin in relation to the histopathological findings with the optical microscope (OM) and electron microscope (EM) of different gastric mucosa biopsies obtained through fibrogastroscopy. 45 patients were studied (19 men and 26 women) with an average age of 63 with different clinical diagnoses documented later by fibrogastroscopy (peptic ulcer, neoplasia etc.), whose previous consent, two biopsies were taken at an antrum level and two biopsies at a fundic-body area level, analyzed later by OM and EM. The anatomopathological criteria followed in order to classify the condition of the mucosa was Whitehead's classification. The PG I and gastrin determination was carried out with RIA against a control group of 25 healthy individuals. Our study allows us to conclude that the normal or high serie concentration of PG I reflects a functional integrity of the fundic-body area, and low levels imply the presence of atrophic chronic gastritis at a fundic-body level. Thus a low level of PG I is a reliable marker of the atrophic condition of the mucosa and it can be considered as a precancerous factor.