The immunological status of the brain and the presence of the blood-brain barrier raise the possibility of local immunosuppression. This article provides an overview of the strategies recently developed to protect intracerebral neural transplants with special focus
on local immunosuppression.”
“Background: There is a paucity of lung specific biomarkers to diagnose exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and to track their progression. Surfactant protein D (SP-D) is a pulmonary collectin regulating the innate immunity of the lung and its serum expression is perturbed in COPD. However, it is not known whether serum levels change during exacerbations. We sought VX-770 to determine whether serum SP-D levels are raised in COPD exacerbations.
Objectives: check details To determine whether or not patients with exacerbations have elevated serum SP-D levels
compared with asymptomatic controls, stable disease.
Study design: case control study.
Methods: We measured serum SP-D levels from patients with stable COPD (n = 14), patients experiencing acute exacerbations (n = 13) and in control subjects (n = 54) using a specific immunoassay and compared the levels using analysis of variance.
Results: Serum SP-D levels were significantly increased in patients who experienced an acute exacerbation (227 +/- 120 ng/mL) compared to patients with stable disease buy AZD7762 (151 +/- 83 ng/mL) or control subjects (128 +/- 65 ng/mL; p = 0.003). Serum SP-D levels were also found to be inversely related to various lung function parameters including FEV(1)/FVC% predicted.
Conclusions: Our study suggests that serum SP-D levels are increased in patients during exacerbations and may be a potential
diagnostic biomarker for COPD exacerbations.”
“Xanthogranuloma (XG) is a benign cutaneous histiocytic tumor occurring mainly in young children. Onset in adulthood is rarely observed. We encountered an unusual case of an XG-like cutaneous tumor on the scalp of a 50-year-old man. The tumor recurred with multiple satellite nodules soon after surgical excision. This unusual clinical behavior has not previously been described for XG and caused a diagnostic challenge; it was unclear whether the tumor was an atypical XG or a malignant dermal tumor mimicking an XG. Our analyses favored an XG-like dermal histiocytic tumor. A longer follow-up and reports of similar cases will reveal its true nature.”
“Purpose of review
Porcine islet xenotransplantation into humans faces two major hurdles – safety issues related to xenosis and xenorejection of the transplants. The former has been overcome mainly by selection of a suitable disease-free source herd.
Recent findings
Four strategies have been employed to date to overcome the rejection, all of which have shown some efficacy in animal models.