Cutaneous drug reactions to piroxicam.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C Vasconcelos.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Uveitis is a general term that refers to the inflammation of uveal tract, which is an important cause of blindness in young people. It is well known that uveitis can be the initial manifestation of a systemic disease (S.D.), and may appear years before the diagnosis of the primary disease. Uveitis should be integrated in a systemic study with proper testing. Therefore, the diagnosis is a matter for the ophthalmologist and the Specialist in internal medicine. We have made a retrospective study of 71 patients with chronic uveitis or panuveitis. We found 54.9% of primary uveitis and 45.1% of S.D. associated uveitis, most of them with Behçet's disease (16/71) and Ankylosing Spondilytis (7/71). HLA typing of the patients showed a decreased frequency of HLA A1 and HLA A3 antigens and an increased frequency of the HLA B27 antigen, when compared to a Portuguese control population. We confirmed the important role of HLA B27 as an independent susceptibility factor for anterior uveitis. The lowest HLA A3 frequency was observed in the group of S.D. associated uveitis, which could suggest that this antigen may play a role as a factor of resistance to uveitis.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
In order to evaluate the role of the determination of adenosine deaminase activity (ADA) in ascitic fluid for the diagnosis of tuberculosis, 44 patients were studied. Based on biochemical, cytological, histopathological and microbiological tests, the patients were divided into 5 groups: G1-tuberculous ascites (n = 8); G2-malignant ascites (n = 13); G3-spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (n = 6); G4-pancreatic ascites (n = 2); G5-miscelaneous ascites (n = 15). ADA concentration were significantly higher in G1 (133.50 +/- 24.74 U/l) compared to the other groups (G2 = 41.85 +/- 52.07 U/l; G3 = 10.63 +/- 5.87 U/l; G4 = 18.00 +/- 7.07 U/l; G5 = 11.23 +/- 7.66 U/l). At a cut-off value of > 31 U/l, the sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values were 100%, 92%, 72% and 100%, respectively. ADA concentrations as high as in tuberculous ascites were only found in two malignant ascites caused by lymphoma. We conclude that ADA determination in ascitic fluid is a useful and reliable screening test for diagnosing tuberculous ascites. Values of ADA higher than 31 U/l indicate more invasive methods to confirm the diagnosis of tuberculosis.
We present a case report with IgA deficiency, pernicious anemia, chronic active hepatitis, insulino-dependent diabetes mellitus and hypogonadism. A diagnosis of Polyglandular Auto-immune Syndrome was done and we discuss the difficulty in including this particular case in any of the types of the Neufeld's classification of Polyglandular Auto-immune Disease.