Twenty eight workers of a pharmaceutical factory were studied. The company produced morphine and other alkaloids extracting the active principles from shells of Papaver somniferum. Six of the exposed subjects had clinical symptoms of sensitization to this allergen and positive skin tests. A bronchial provocation test was found to be positive on 4 workers and specific IgE could be found on the 6 sensitized patients by an ELISA and a RAST test using an aqueous extract of P. somniferum. A histamine release using the same antigen was also positive in the 4 samples from sensitized patients available. An SDS-PAGE of the extract revealed a major protein band with an estimated mol wt of 52,000 d. This band had the highest IgE-binding capacity as shown by immunoblotting. All these facts suggest that P. somniferum allergy is mediated by an IgE mediated mechanism and not by a pharmacological or toxic effect of the alkaloids or polyphenols.

Allergens↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Hemorrhagic fever and the dengue shock syndrome].

Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) and Dengue Shock Syndrome (DSS) are the severe and/or fatal clinical manifestations of dengue fever. Epidemics of DHF/DSS occur mainly in the southeast Asian countries where children are seriously affected and high case-fatality ratio is annually reported. Recently significant epidemics of DHF/DSS have been reported in Cuba, Venezuela and Brazil, which means that reinforcements of the epidemiological surveillance in the countries of the American region that show high virus transmission, are urgently needed. The main purpose of the present article is to review relevant information regarding the clinical manifestations, pathology, diagnostic procedures, treatment of cases, pathophysiologic mechanisms and some data related with specific DHF/DSS epidemics.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Prenatal diagnosis of right-sided diaphragmatic hernia: the use of color flow Doppler.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Adult↗