Xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis (XGC) is an unusual inflammatory disease of the gallbladder that may simulate gallbladder cancer. We report the findings with conventional sonography, endoscopic sonography (EUS), and CT in 3 cases of XGC. EUS could visualize hyperechoic nodules in the gallbladder wall, probably representing xanthogranulomas, but loss of the multilayered structure of the gallbladder wall and infiltration into adjacent organs make differentiating XGC from gallbladder cancer difficult with EUS alone.

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PubMedDate not supplied

Scleral fibroblasts of the chick embryo differentiate into chondrocytes in soft-agar culture.

Scleral fibroblasts, perichondrial cells of the scleral layer of the 12-day chick embryo, always manifest a fibroblastic morphology in monolayer culture. In soft-agar culture, these cells produce two types of colonies. One type of colony, F-type, consists of adherent fibroblastic cells, and the other, C-type, is composed of scattered round chondrocytic cells. Cells of the C-type colony are surrounded by a halo of extracellular matrix, positive with Alcian blue and with an antibody to cartilage-specific proteoglycan. When a single fibroblast clone in monolayer, derived from a single scleral fibroblast, is subcultured into soft agar, the cells give rise to both C-type and F-type colonies. Further, it was found that cells constituting F-type colonies eventually separate and become spherical, and the F-type colony converts to a C-type colony (C-type conversion). In regard to the C-type convertibility, the primary fibroblast clones were divided into four categories, early time differentiating, middle-time differentiating, late-time differentiating and nondifferentiating. This suggests that the scleral perichondrial layer of the 12-day chick embryo is composed of a variety of cells with different chondrogenic potentialities maintained in each individual cell.

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PubMedDate not supplied

Lipid peroxides and human diseases.

Development of a simple and reliable method to determine the lipid peroxide level in human serum or plasma has made it possible to survey the levels in human diseases. Since in some human diseases lipid peroxides are increased in various organs or tissues and leak into the bloodstream, the increased lipid peroxide level in the blood aids the diagnosis of such diseases. Furthermore, determination of the level provides useful information as to their prognosis, since the increased lipid peroxides in the blood primarily attack the endothelial cells of vessels and then intact organs or tissues as well. The present paper describes a method to determine the lipid peroxide level in human serum or plasma and its profile of change in several human diseases. Intervention of lipid peroxides in the pathogenesis of certain diseases is also mentioned.

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