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Biomedical subjects

P Biberfeld

Publications and source records attributed to P Biberfeld.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources
PubMed1985

Cushing's syndrome due to an ACTH-producing neuroendocrine tumour in the nasal roof.

A patient with ectopic adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) production from a neuroendocrine tumour of the nasal roof is presented. By indirect immunoperoxidase techniques the tumour cells were shown to be distinctly positive for ACTH and beta-endorphin but negative for other peptides derived from pro-opiomelanocortin. Neither corticotropin releasing hormone (CRF) found in some tumours associated with ectopic Cushing's syndrome, nor gastrin immunoreactivity, which coexists with ACTH in normal rat pituitary and in rat and human gastrointestinal cells, were demonstrable in the tumour. A review of other, previously recognized locations of CRF/ACTH producing tumours is given to increase the awareness of the ectopic Cushing's syndrome, which may lack the classical features and is characterized by fulminant clinical course, extreme fatigue, weakness, pale facial swelling, oedema and hypokalaemic alkalosis.

ACTH Syndrome, Ectopic↗
PubMed1985

Immune phenotype and prognosis in chronic B-lymphocytic leukaemia and leukaemic immunocytoma.

Fifty-nine patients with a leukaemic B-lymphocytic malignancy ("CLL") were studied. According to the Kiel classification, 29 patients had chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) and 30 had immunocytoma (IC). Cell surface immunoglobulin staining showed mu heavy chain phenotype in 14 patients, mu in 35, gamma in 7; in cells from 3 patients the staining was too weak to permit identification. The light chain phenotype was kappa in 39 patients, lambda in 17, and unidentified in 3. The immunoglobulin isotypes differed between the diagnoses. The gamma chain phenotype was found only in IC patients (p less than 0.02), and more CLL than IC patients showed a lambda chain phenotype (p less than 0.04). Blood lymphocytes from IC patients contained more T cells than CLL cell samples (p less than 0.002). No prognostic difference was found between the CLL and IC group. Compared to the lambda phenotype, the kappa phenotype was associated with a poorer prognosis in the IC group, but with a better prognosis in the CLL group. IC patients with mu phenotype had a poorer prognosis than those with gamma phenotype. Low relative T cell numbers were associated with a poor survival (p less than 0.01).

Aged↗
PubMed1985

Antibodies to human T lymphotropic virus type III demonstrated by a dot immunobinding assay.

A dot immunobinding (DIB) technique was applied to the demonstration of antibodies to human T-lymphotropic virus type III (HTLV-III). By this technique IgG antibodies to HTLV-III were demonstrated in six of six Swedish patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome and in 37 of 39 (95%) Swedish homosexual men with persistent generalized lymphadenopathy but in none of 50 Swedish healthy blood donors. Findings obtained by this method showed complete concordance with those obtained by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. All sera positive by DIB were also positive by Western blotting. The DIB assay is simple and well suited for screening of sera for HTLV-III antibodies.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1985

Immune phenotype heterogeneity in AML.

Blood cells from 46 patients with acute myeloid leukaemia were studied for expression of various surface markers, defined by a panel of 12 monoclonal antibodies and the expression of Fc gamma receptors. Corresponding studies were done on normal bone marrow cells. Antibodies which bound to leukaemic cells in high frequencies were those which most frequently also bound to normal bone marrow cells. Immunophenotypic analysis revealed a marked antigenic heterogeneity in AML, also evident within single FAB subclasses. However, leukaemic cells of FAB subclass M1 significantly more often expressed HLA class I antigen than those of FAB subclass M5a, whereas Fc gamma receptors which were expressed only on a few cells in M5a, were increasingly frequent on leukaemic cells of M1-M2, M4, and M5b leukaemias. The frequency of cells reacting with the monoclonal antibody T50/12,11,2 was related to the complete remission rate of the patients. Patients with high frequencies of cells reacting with this antibody had a better complete remission rate than patients with fewer cells binding to this antibody. The immunophenotypic heterogeneity an AML may reflect a great biological variability of this disease. This variability may be of importance for the classification and treatment of AML.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Transferrin receptors on circulating monocytes in hereditary haemochromatosis.

In patients with hereditary haemochromatosis (HH) abnormal functional properties of the macrophage system have been observed. The present study is a preliminary report of increased transferrin receptor expression on monocytes from 12 patients with HH. There was no correlation between the degree of iron overload and the transferrin receptor expression on the monocytes. The results obtained thus indicate that the observed increase in transferrin receptors is not a secondary phenomenon due to systemic iron overload but could be an expression of a primary inborn error of iron metabolism in HH. The functional aspects of the receptors were not evaluated as they were analyzed by means of monoclonal antibody technique.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Leukemic myeloblasts expressing lymphoid markers.

Out of 60 patients with acute myeloid leukemia not preceded by chronic myelocytic leukemia or any preleukemic phase, 7 had both lymphoid and myeloid markers. All patients expressed common acute lymphatic leukemia antigen (CALLA) in 20% or more of their leukemic cells, which also showed positive peroxidase reaction. In addition, 4 patients had Auer rods. Two additional patients had morphologically clear acute monocytic leukemia (FAB M5b) and cells expressing CALLA. In 4 of the 7 patients the sum of the percentages of peroxidase or Leu M1 + and CALLA-positive blast cells exceeded 100%, suggesting that at least some of the cells had both myeloid and lymphoid markers. Moreover, out of 3 patients where double staining with the CALLA antibody J5 and the myeloid marker Leu M1 was performed, 2 had both markers on the same cells.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Immunohistopathology of lymph nodes in HTLV-III infected homosexuals with persistent adenopathy or AIDS.

Lymph node biopsies from 43 male homosexuals with persistent generalized lymphadenopathy and from ten acquired immunodeficiency syndrome patients, all with serum antibodies to human T-cell leukemia virus III, were studied with regard to histopathology, immunohistology, and T-cell subsets in cell suspensions. All acquired immunodeficiency syndrome biopsies except one with Kaposi's sarcoma had the same histopathological pattern of follicular depletion, whereas the persistent generalized lymphadenopathy nodes showed a spectrum of changes characterized as follicular hyperplasia, involution with follicular fragmentation, or involution with follicular atrophy. Immunohistology showed a temporal and structural relation between follicular involution, disappearance of follicular dendritic reticulum cells, and follicular invasion by T-cells. These observations suggest elimination of dendritic reticulum cells as part of a pathogenic mechanism in follicular involution. Angiogenesis measured by staining of endothelial cells with antibodies to Factor VIII was increased in many biopsies in stages of involution and depletion. Our observations indicate the occurrence of marked changes not only in T-cells but also in the B-cell compartment of patients with persistent generalized lymphadenopathy or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. The possibility of staging lymph nodes of these patients by combined histopathology and immunohistology is indicated. This might improve the evaluation of prognosis in these patients. A possible importance of angiogenesis for the tumorigenesis of Kaposi's sarcoma is suggested.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1985

Prognostic information from cytogenetic analysis in chronic B-lymphocytic leukemia and leukemic immunocytoma.

Fifty-five patients with a clonal expansion of B lymphocytes in the peripheral blood were studied. According to the Kiel classification, 22 patients had chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), 29 had immunocytoma (IC), two had prolymphocytic leukemia, and one had centrocytic lymphoma; one was not subclassified. Cytogenetic studies after B cell mitogen stimulation showed that six patients had an extra chromosome 12 as the sole abnormality. Another ten patients had an extra chromosome 12 together with other abnormalities. One patient had dup(12). Fifteen patients showed clonal aberrations without +12. Eleven patients showed only normal metaphases, and 12 patients were not evaluated cytogenetically. The cytogenetic subgroup pattern did not distinguish between CLL and IC patients. There was no significant difference between the CLL and IC groups as regards clinical findings and prognosis. However, the cytogenetic typing proved to be of prognostic significance. Increasing numbers of chromosomal aberrations within the cell clone were significantly associated with a poorer prognosis, ie, with impairment of survival (P = .04) and therapy-free survival (P less than 10(-4]. Patients with complex karyotypes (at least clonal aberrations) showed the poorest survival (P = .007). Patients with +12 required treatment earlier than patients with a normal karyotype (P = .01) and patients with karyotypic changes other than +12 (P = .006). These latter differences were even more pronounced when only IC patients were considered (P = .005 and P = .002, respectively). A multivariate analysis revealed that +12 was as strong an indicator of poor survival as advanced Rai or Binet stages and a stronger predictor of therapy-demanding disease.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Interferon induces proliferation and differentiation in primary chronic lymphocytic leukaemia cells.

The influence of interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) on the differentiation of malignant cells from six patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia was studied in vitro. IFN induced differentiation in the leukaemic cells from four of the patients. In cells from two of these patients, IFN also induced proliferation. When tested by immunofluorescence, the clonality of the differentiating cells was established by the presence of intracellular light chains of one type only.

B-Lymphocytes↗
PubMed1984

Prognostic factors in Hodgkin's disease with special reference to age.

A series of 182 patients with Hodgkin's disease, diagnosed between January 1973 and December 1978 was used to identify prognostic factors with special reference to age. There were 118 men and 64 women (mean age, 47 years; r = 15-92). During the same period 57 elderly patients who were never referred, were reported to the Local Cancer Registry. The diagnosis had been established shortly before death or at autopsy. The 182 patients under study were evenly distributed in Stages I-IV. Nodular sclerosis (38%) and mixed cellularity (38%) were the most common histologic subtypes. The 5-year survival probability estimate was 28% in patients above 50 years as compared to 74% in the remainder. Survival was significantly better in patients with Stage I-II disease and lymphocyte predominance/nodular sclerosis histopathology. Age was the main prognostic factor in the whole series as well as in patients older than 50 years. However, in young patients advanced clinical stage and B-symptoms were related to a poor prognosis. Biologic indicators such as ESR, hemoglobin and albumin were intimately linked to the extent of disease and did not add prognostic information besides that given by the clinical stage. It is concluded that the prognosis in elderly remains poor and appears to be partly unrelated to those factors which determine the prognosis in the young, assumingly reflecting a depressed host-response and/or a decreased tolerance to intensive treatment.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Antibody producing human-human hybridomas. II. Derivation and characterization of an antibody specific for human leukemia cells.

Human-human hybridoma technology was used to immortalize human B lymphocytes from patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) to study the antigenic repertoire of the humoral immune response against the patients' own leukemia cells and against leukemic cells from other patients. Nine fusions were done with lymphocytes from seven AML patients, and all with the human RH-L4 B lymphoma line as malignant fusion partner. A total of 305 Ig-producing hybrids were obtained. 26 reacted with cell surface components on AML cells, but 21 were found not to be specific for leukemia cells, when screened for reactivity against a panel of normal and malignant cells of both human and murine origin. Five hybridomas secreted Ig with high specificity for human leukemia cells, but only one hybridoma culture, aml-18, was stable in respect to Ig-production and growth upon repeated clonings and expansion in liquid cultures. A method was developed to grow human hybridomas as ascites tumors in nude mice, but the ascites fluid did not contain increased amount of antibody. The reactivity of the aml-18 antibody (gamma, kappa) was analyzed against samples of mononuclear cells from peripheral blood of 63 patients with leukemia and with cytologically verified leukemia cells in the blood. 22 of 54 AML samples reacted with aml-18. The reactivity pattern was not correlated to any categories of the French-American-British (FAB) classification; two of four ALL were positive. Moreover, a pronounced intratumoral antigenic heterogeneity in regard to aml-18 reactivity was seen and indicates a high degree of diversity in the immunological phenotype within individual AML cell populations. The study demonstrates that some patients with AML generate an immune response against their autologous malignant cells, and that the antigenic determinant in the case of aml-18 is also expressed specifically on leukemic cells from other patients.

Antibodies, Monoclonal↗
PubMed1984

Prognostic significance of terminal transferase activity and glucocorticoid receptor levels in acute myeloid leukemia.

A retrospective study was undertaken to evaluate terminal transferase activity and glucocorticoid receptor content as predictors of prognosis in 52 adult patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Eighteen patients who had detectable levels of TdT in their leukaemic cells (greater than or equal to 0.1 unit microgram-1 DNA), had a higher complete remission rate than patients with low TdT activity. Patients below 60 years with increased TdT activity also had longer survival as compared to those with low TdT levels. By combining cytochemical analysis of peroxidase and immunocytochemical staining for TdT it was possible to show that the enzyme was located in leukaemic cells of myeloid origin. Leukemias of monocytic origin had no detectable TdT activity in 10/11 cases. The cellular content of the cytoplasmic glucocorticoid receptor varied from 0 to 2.8 fmol micrograms-1 DNA. There was no difference in receptor content between the different FAB subgroups. High levels of the receptor (greater than or equal to 0.22 fmol microgram-1 DNA) were positively correlated with the remission rate. Patients with TdT levels of greater than or equal to 0.1 unit microgram-1 DNA and a glucocorticoid receptor concentration of greater than or equal to 0.22 fmol microgram-1 DNA had significantly higher remission (P = 0.001) and survival rates (P = 0.007) compared with those with undectectable levels of both TdT and low receptor content. It is thus concluded that combined measurements of TdT and the glucocorticoid receptor are useful predictors of prognosis in AML.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Subpopulations of mononuclear cells in microscopic lesions of psoriatic patients. Selective accumulation of suppressor/cytotoxic T cells in epidermis during the evolution of the lesion.

The age of microscopic lesions in psoriatic subjects was assessed from the stacking characteristics in the horny layer and related to type and density (cells/tissue volume) of mononuclear cells in the epidermis and the dermis determined by immunoperoxidase methods using monoclonal antibodies. Pan T cells (Lyt-2+, Lyt-3+, Leu-4+, OKT3+), T helper cells (Leu-3a+, OKT4+), T suppressor/cytotoxic cells (Leu-2a+, OKT8+), Ia+ cells and monocytes (OKM2+, BRL alpha mono+) were determined in epidermis and dermis. The psoriatic lesion was divided into regions underneath a parakeratotic and an orthohyperkeratotic/hypergranular portion of the horny layer and contrasted with perilesional and uninvolved psoriatic skin as well as with healthy skin. In the various regions and skin layers, the cell density was highest in parakeratosis and decreased toward normality with decreasing histologic abnormality. The relation between epidermal and dermal cell densities of the T-cell subsets was modified in the involved psoriatic skin with a selective preponderance of T suppressor/cytotoxic cells in the epidermis. The accumulation was present in the youngest lesion found (3 days) and cell densities were unchanged in older lesions. The findings suggests that the altered relationship in the subsets of T cells has an important role during the induction and progress of the psoriatic process in the skin.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Failing transcervical thymectomy in myasthenia gravis. An evaluation of transsternal re-exploration.

Twenty cases of failing transcervical thymectomy are reported. They were selected for transsternal re-exploration from a series of 95 patients who had previously undergone transcervical thymectomy because of myasthenia gravis (MG). A specific method for pre-operative detection of remnants of the non-tumorous thymic gland is lacking, but the applied clinical selection criteria were so far reliable: generalized, disabling, fluctuating MG despite cholinesterase inhibitor and/or immunosuppressive treatment, and no or inconsistent improvement after transcervical thymectomy. At transsternal re-exploration the commonest findings were intact lower thymic lobes with persistent venous drainage into the brachiocephalic vein. Presence of thymic tissue was histologically confirmed in all the excised specimens (weight range 10-60, mean 23 g), and the examination showed thymic hyperplasia in 18 cases, fatty involution of the gland in two, and a lympho-epithelial thymoma in one case. The re-operation was followed by objectively registrable improvement in all but one of the 20 patients during observation periods of 8-75 (mean 21) months. There was statistically significant reduction in disability scores (means 8.2-4.9) and in need for anticholinesterase medication (to 67% of pretreatment dose). Immunosuppression became unnecessary in 6 of 11 patients and could be reduced in 4 patients. The incidence of failure in transcervical thymectomy was alarmingly high (27%), and more re-operations are anticipated. Since the transcervical approach involves a high risk of incomplete thymectomy, its use should be abandoned. However, in most of the patients with re-operation, subsequent progress has been sufficiently promising for advocacy of sternotomy whenever the clinical criteria of failure are fulfilled.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Anchorage and lymphocyte function: pattern of spreading distinguishes T- and B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

T and B lymphocytes from normal individuals and patients with T and B chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (TCLL and BCLL) were induced to spread on a solid surface in the presence of Con A. The proportion of cell circumference exhibiting lamellar activity was considerably greater in T than in B cells. This difference also applied to T and B cells with a single leading lamellipodium. The different pattern of formation of active cell edges implied that the degree of polarity measured as the ratio between the largest and the shortest diameter (over the nucleus) was significantly greater in B than in T cells. This was also obvious when T and B cells, both with a single leading lamellipodium, were compared. The formation of active cell edges in T lymphocytes was generally accompanied by nuclear flattening, even in polar cells with a single leading lamellipodium. B cells, with the exception of one BCLL case, did not exhibit nuclear flattening. Thus, during the entire course of a contact-induced morphogenetic response, T- and B-cell leukaemias were easily distinguishable on the basis of the following criteria: (i) the proportion of the lymphocyte perimeter showing active cell edges, (ii) the degree of polarity and (iii) nuclear flattening.

Adult↗