[Is gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase constantly normal in benign recurrent cholestasis?].
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to H Jouin.
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The choledochus and pancreatic duct ordinarily enter the duodenum either separately or via a common channel located in the duodenal wall. The usual maximal length of the common channel is approximately 0.5 cm. An anomalous junction of the pancreaticobiliary tract is defined by the presence of an unusually long common channel whose length is 1 cm or longer. During the last 8 years, we studied 9 cases of congenital dilatation of the bile duct. Besides the choledochal cyst, all patients had a common channel which measured 1.5 cm or longer. The mean age of patients (6 females, 3 males) was 36.5 years. Three patients had extrahepatic bile tract carcinoma. One patient, a 51-year old man, had gallbladder carcinoma without stones while the two other patients, a 43-year old woman and a 32-year old man, had carcinoma arising from the wall of the cystic dilatation. These two patients had undergone a simple internal drainage procedure 16 and 8 years before, respectively. Our study suggests that the anomalous junction of the pancreaticobiliary tract, an embryonic anomaly which allows the reflux of pancreatic juice into the bile duct and gallbladder, may be responsible for congenital bile duct dilatation and biliary tract carcinoma. Total excision of the cystic dilatation and the gallbladder with hepaticojejunostomy is the appropriate surgical treatment.
We report an unusual gastric ulcer disease in a 52 year old white man which relapsed despite antacids and anti-H2 treatment. During the course of the disease, fever, weight loss, and ocular, oropharyngeal as well as systemic manifestations occurred. Gastric biopsies were normal until macrobiopsy was performed 5 months later demonstrating necrotizing granulomatous vasculitis. Further identical oropharyngeal mucosal lesions and a pulmonary infiltrate occurred supporting the diagnosis of Wegener's disease. The subsequent course was complicated by a massive hemorrhage which required total gastrectomy. Despite specific treatment with cyclophosphamide and steroids, the patient died. Most of the gastrointestinal lesions consistent with Wegener's disease are usually found at necropsy. Clinical gastrointestinal manifestations are scarce and rarely due to the underlying disease. Prognosis depends upon the renal lesions. However, as well, involvement of the digestive tract seems to be a factor of poor evolution of the disease.
Thirty-seven adults with gastroesophageal reflux were explored by gastroesophageal scintigraphy and pH monitoring (three hours postprandial). Scintigraphy was less frequently positive than pH test in gastroesophageal reflux (81% versus 57%) with a significant difference. It is suggested that postprandial pH monitoring is reliable in the initial assessment of symptomatic gastroesophageal reflux.
The immunoprotective activity of Klebsiella pneumoniae K2 cell surface preparations and purified capsular polysaccharide was tested in mice. The 50% protective dose (PD50), expressed as capsular polysaccharide content, was 2 ng for cell surface preparations and 50 ng for purified capsular polysaccharide. Both preparations lost their immunoprotective activity after alkali treatment. Immune sera were raised in rabbits immunized with cell surface preparations. The precipitating and hemagglutinating capacity of these antisera was tested against either purified capsular polysaccharide or alkali-treated capsular polysaccharide. No difference was observed between the reactivity of the antisera against each antigen. The protective activity of these sera was tested on mice in passive transfer experiments, before and after absorption with either purified capsular polysaccharide or alkali-treated capsular polysaccharide. The sera lost their protective activity after absorption with purified capsular polysaccharide and after absorption with alkali-treated capsular polysaccharide. These experiments show that the difference in immunoprotective activity of cell surface preparations, purified capsular polysaccharide, and alkali-treated capsular polysaccharide is not due to a difference in their antigenic determinants. Cell surface preparations and purified capsular polysaccharide were fractionated by gel filtration on Sepharose 4B and by ultracentrifugation on cesium chloride density gradients. Three forms of capsular polysaccharide have been characterized. (i) A form of capsular polysaccharide with a very high protective activity (PD50 = 2 ng) that copurified with protein and lipopolysaccharide and was characterized by a low coefficient of distribution (Kd = 0.20) and a low density (1.5 to 1.6 g/cm3). (ii) A form of capsular polysaccharide with an intermediate protective activity (PD50 = 50 ng), contamined by less than 3% protein and 1% lipopolysaccharide, with a Kd of 0.35, and a density of 1.7 to 1.8 g/cm3. (iii) A nonimmunoprotective capsular polysaccharide obtained after alkali treatment of either cell surface preparations or purified capsular polysaccharide. The Kd of these fractions varied from 0.20 to 0.90 and their density from 1.7 to 1.8 g/cm3.
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The IIB or third type of multiple endocrine neoplasia is a very uncommon hereditary disease. It includes a digestive ganglioneuromatosis, a typical dysmorphia, a medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) sometimes a pheochromocytoma and seldom a hyperparathyroidism. We report a Men IIB case in a 19 years old patient who had been suffering from severe constipation and afflicted with a megacolon, known since early infancy. Diagnosis was documented by discovering a colonic ganglioneuromatosis and a MTC. A complete thyroidectomy was performed but cervical node metastasis were already present. The ganglioneuromatosis usually affects the whole alimentary tract, but megacolon although not regularly found occurs most frequently. Awareness of the diagnosis is easier when patients have big lips, eyelids, tongue (due to mucosal neuromas) and marfanoid habitus. The prognosis depends upon the MTC. It occurs early in the life, is often bilateral and has a trend to become uncontrollable in the young adult. The pheochromocytoma is often latent and affects only half of patients. The etiopathogeny of this disease still remains unknown. Family inquiry may help to an earlier diagnosis and therefore to a better prognosis.
The authors are reporting an unusual case of scleral involvement in a case of Crohn's disease. A distinctive subepithelial keratopathy developed which though uncommon, should be regarded as a distinct clinical sign of Crohn's disease. The exact situation of ocular lesions among extra-intestinal complications of Crohn's disease, their incidence and aspects are discussed. The possible immunological basis of these manifestations, still unconvincing, is exposed and related to local deposition of antigen-antibody complexes.
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Haemophilus influenzae type b is the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in children. Intranasal or intraperitoneal inoculation of infant rats with Haemophilus influenzae type b results in bacteremia and meningitis and has been proved to be a reproductible model of the human disease. For these reasons, it was of interest to use rats as experimental model for the study of anti-Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine. Immune serum against Haemophilus influenzae type b cell surface extracts was prepared on rabbit. In a first experiment, pregnant rats were passively immunized with either immune rabbit serum or normal rabbit serum or saline. In a second experiment, suckling rat mothers were passively immunized with either immune rabbit serum or normal rabbit serum or saline. All infant rats were inoculated intraperitoneally at 6 days of age with Haemophilus influenzae type b. Bacteremia was determined in all infected rats 24 h after challenge. Only infant rats from immune serum-treated mothers were protected. This protection may be transferred from mother to young rat either before of after the birth.
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An antigenic fraction of Salmonella typhi strain TY6S, obtained from a bacterial pellet by washings with 1.5 M NaCl and ultracentrifugation in a 5%-20% sucrose density gradient, induced serum antibodies in rabbits that protected chicken embryos challenged with lethal doses of the virulent microorganism. The antigenic preparation was free of Vi, O, and H antigens. It contained about 85% protein and Rd1P+ lipopolysaccharide. The protein moiety comprised three polypeptides of 45,000, 32,000, and 20,000 daltons, respectively. In addition, the purified preparation exhibited the properties of a bacterial adhesin with receptor-like activity for mannosyl residues, as shown by agglutination of target cells containing these residues at their surfaces.
Previous work has demonstrated the capsular serotypic specificity of the protection conferred on mice by Klebsiella pneumoniae ribosomal preparations. The data in these studies support the hypothesis that capsular polysaccharide plays at least some role in the specificity of the protection conferred by ribosomal preparations. In this investigation, the presence of capsular polysaccharide and lipopolysaccharide in K. pneumoniae ribosomal preparations was demonstrated by using immunodiffusion tests. Lipopolysaccharide content was determined for mice treated with actinomycin D. The serotype of O antigen did not play a role in the orientation of the specificity of the protection. The possibility that lipopolysaccharide might act as an adjuvant was not unlikely since the ribosomal preparations which contained the greatest amounts of lipopolysaccharide appeared to be the most immunoprotective preparations. Ribosomal preparations extracted from a noncapsulated mutant of K. pneumoniae did not protect mice. This finding suggested that capsular polysaccharide might play a role in the immunoprotective activity of ribosomes. This hypothesis was tested by using K. pneumoniae K2 bacteriophage-associated-glycanase, which specifically hydrolyzed K. pneumoniae K2 capsular polysaccharide and thereby suppressed the immunoprotective activity of K. pneumoniae K2 ribosomal preparations. In contrast, the K2 bacteriophage-associated glycanase did not interfere with the immunoprotective activity of K. pneumoniae K1 ribosomal preparations. These results clearly demonstrate that capsular polysaccharide, which is an extraribosomal antigen, is involved in the immunoprotective activity of K. pneumoniae ribosomal preparations.
Cell surface preparations and ribosomal preparations were extracted from Klebsiella pneumoniae. Agar gel diffusion with antisera to cell surface preparations or ribosomal preparations indicated common antigenic components among the preparations. Lipopolysaccharide and capsular polysaccharide were identified in the cell surface preparations. These results and the previous identification of lipopolysaccharide and capsular polysaccharide in ribosomal preparations suggest that these antigens are responsible for the immunochemical cross-reactivity observed among these two bacterial extracts. Active protection could be induced in mice by these two preparations. On a dry-weight basis, cell surface preparations provided better immunoprotective activity than did ribosomal preparations. However, the 50% protective dose of both preparations is practically the same on the basis of their capsular polysaccharide content. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the immunoprotective moiety of ribosomal preparations is the contaminating cell surface antigens. Furthermore, the low level of nucleotidic components detected in purified cell surface preparations led us to infer that the immunoprotective activity of capsular polysaccharide may not be dependent on the adjuvant activity of ribonucleic acid. The involvement of capsular polysaccharide in the immunoprotective capacity of cell surface preparations is demonstrated either by using a degradation of this antigen by K. pneumoniae bacteriophage K2-associated glycanase or by using a preparation extracted from a noncapsulated mutant of K. pneumoniae. Nevertheless, the low protective ability of purified capsular polysaccharides is in contrast to its greater activity when induced in bacterial cell surface preparations. The protective activity of K. pneumoniae capsular polysaccharide may be dependent on its association with other surface antigenic components present in cell surface preparations or may be dependent on its native form in the bacterial cell surface.
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