Lipid peroxidation and antioxidant defence system in patients with active or inactive Behçet's disease.

To evaluate plasma lipid peroxidation and enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidant systems in patients with Behçet's disease, plasma malondialdehyde levels and total antioxidant status, erythrocyte superoxide dismutase and whole blood glutathione peroxidase activities were studied in 15 patients with active disease and in 30 with inactive disease, and compared with 20 age-matched healthy control subjects. Plasma malondialdehyde levels were significantly higher in patients with active Behçet's disease than in patients with inactive disease, who had significantly higher levels than control subjects. The plasma total antioxidant status of both groups of patients was significantly lower than that of controls. Furthermore, whole blood glutathione peroxidase activity was significantly lower in patients with active versus inactive Behçet's disease. There were no significant differences in erythrocyte superoxide dismutase levels between the groups. In conclusion, there is an increase in oxidative stress in Behçet's disease. Despite this stress, the antioxidant system is deficient and inadequate, especially in patients who are in an active phase of the disease.

Evaluation of leukocyte arylsulfatase-A activity in patients with breast cancer and benign breast disease.

This study was planned to evaluate the feasibility of using the assay of leukocyte arylsulfatase-A (AS-A) activity as a non-invasive diagnostic tool in patients with benign and malignant breast disease. The leukocyte AS-A activity of a total of 81 women was analyzed, including 28 healthy women, 29 women with benign breast disease (BBD) and 24 patients with primary breast cancer (BC). The mean leukocyte AS-A activity in patients with BBD was slightly higher (14.3%) that observed in the healthy subjects, but the difference was not statistically significant. In patients with BC the enzyme activity was significantly higher than in the healthy subjects (60.3%, P<0.05) and in the benign group (40.2%, P<0.05). In addition, since no significant differences have been observed between premenopausal patients and their controls, it is suggested that the measurement of leukocyte AS-A activity may not be a reliable test for differential diagnosis of benign and malignant proliferation in mammary glands due to the possible interfering effect of gonadal hormones on AS-A activity. In contrast, since peri- and postmenopausal BC patients have negligible or no gonadal activity function, the elevation in the activity of leukocyte AS-A in these age groups of patients may only be expected to originate from malignant proliferation. Based on our results, it is concluded that in patients in whom high leukocyte AS-A activities were observed the possibility of the presence of malignancy might also be high. Therefore, this test might be valuable as a non-invasive biochemical technique in combination with other established markers for the identification of masses in the breast.

Plasma and erythrocyte total antioxidant status in patients with benign and malign breast disease.

The study was carried out on 25 women with breast cancer, 25 with fibrocystic breast disease and 19 healthy subjects. Antioxidant enzyme activities and total antioxidant status (AOX) were measured in erythrocyte and plasma of patients and healthies. Among the studied parameters, the erythrocyte Glutathione Peroxidase (GSH-Px) and Catalase (CAT) activities of patients with breast cancer were significantly different as compared to the control group values (p < 0.002 and p < 0.001) respectively. There was no correlation between total antioxidant status and any of these enzymes in erythrocyte and plasma activities of subjects. However, the positive correlation was found between erythrocyte and plasma Superoxide Dismutase [SOD(CuZn)] activities in all groups. Our results indicate that enzymatic and nonenzymatic antioxidants are differentially altered in human breast tumors. Since the total antioxidant status measurement isn't sufficient to evaluate the oxidant damage in breast disease, antioxidant enzymes must be measured separately in order to get additional information.