1,721,234 research outputs found
Immune-Mediated Inner Ear Disease
No full textThe hypothesis that a syndrome of sensorineural hearing
loss (SNHL) often accompanied by vestibular symptoms
might be of autoimmune origin was first proposed by
McCabe (1979), who based his findings on clinical features,
presence of abnormal immunological tests, and a
positive response to immunosuppressive therapy. Since
then, a number of syndromes characterized by SNHL
with overlapping clinical features have been described
and termed in different ways: autoimmune SNHL,
immune-mediated inner ear disease (IMIED), idiopathic
progressive bilateral SNHL, sudden SNHL, idiopathic
SNHL, bilateral immune-mediated Me ́nie`re’s disease, and
autoimmune vestibulo-cochlear disorders, generating a great confusion in the identification
of patients and in the evaluation of different studies.
SNHL in adult patients remains idiopathic in the vast
majority of cases (71%); known causes are viral infections
(12.8%), inner ear abnormality (4.7%), trauma
(4.2%), vascular or hematologic (2.8%), neoplastic
(2.3%), and CNS abnormality
Vasculiti del sistema nervoso centrale in corso di malattie autoimmuni:dalla patogenesi alla terapia
No full textSerum IgG4 in autoimmune pancreatitis: a marker of disease severity and recurrence?
No full textAutoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) is a well-defined clinical entitypathologically different from all the other forms of chronic pancreatitis. Since its first description, the concept of the disease has greatly changed over time. On the basis of pathological findings, the disease has been recently classified in type 1 AIP (also called Lympho-Plasmacytic Sclerosing Pancreatitis – LPSP), and type 2 AIP (also called Idiopathic Duct-centric Chronic Pancreatitis – IDCP), as reported by Matsubayashi et al. [1]. These two forms of AIP seem to have different clinical profiles, since type 1 AIP is characterized by other organ involvement (biliary tract, salivary glands, gastrointestinal tract, kidney, retroperitoneum) and frequent relapses after steroid treatment,whereas type 2 AIP seems to be associated with ulcerativecolitis and does not relapse. However, both forms show a goodresponse to steroids
The role of peptide libraries in the identification of novel autoantigen targets in autoimmune diseases
No full textIdentification of pathogenetically relevant autoantigen targets is a major goal in the study of autoimmune diseases. Indeed it may allow the development of new specific diagnostic tools and facilitate the understanding of the pathogenesis of a disease in order to individualize possible novel treatments. The random peptide library is a molecular biology method that consists of the display of random peptides on live microorganisms. The screening of the library with pooled immunoglobulins obtained from patients affected by an autoimmune disease may lead to the identification of novel autoantigens and of antibodies that are able to bind such antigens with high affinity. Testing patients' sera for the presence of these antibodies may be helpful in the diagnosis of the disease. Moreover such antibodies can be investigated for their functional activity and therefore provide new insights into the pathogenesis of the disease
Inner Ear Disease
No full textThe hypothesis that a syndrome of sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) often accompanied by vestibular symptoms might be of autoimmune origin was firstly proposed by McCabe (1979) who based his findings on clinical features, presence of abnormal immunological tests and a positive response to immunosuppressive therapy. Since then, a number of syndromes characterized by SNHL with overlapping clinical features have been described and termed in different ways: autoimmune SNHL, immune-mediated inner ear disease (IMIED), idiopathic progressive bilateral SNHL, sudden SNHL, idiopathic SNHL, bilateral immune mediated Menière disease, autoimmune vestibulo-cochlear disorders (Rahman et al., 2001a), generating a great confusion in the identification of patients and in the evaluation of different studies. It is still debated whether we can define autoimmune all the cases of SNHL without any apparent cause. Although most of the Authors in the field refer to these cases with the term “Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease” or “Autoimmune Sensorineural Hearing Loss” (Solares et al., 2003; Mathews and Kumar, 2003), others (Stone and Francis, 2000; Garcia-Berrocal et al., 2003) still prefer the definition of IMIED, since not always an autoimmune process can be identified. Immune-mediated inner ear disease may be a process confined to the inner ear and antibodies against a vast array of different molecular weight inner ear antigens may be found in a percentage of these patients; in this case the process can be identified as an organ specific autoimmune disease. In other cases, IMIED is a feature of a systemic disorder such as primary vasculitides or of systemic autoimmune diseases. Indeed a systemic autoimmune disorder can be present in nearly one third of the patients with IMIED
The T cell receptor repertoire in human disease
No full textThe manuscript deals with the usage of TCR alpha/beta at the site of autoimmune aggression in order to sustain the hypothesis of an antigendriven process
Unmasking the anti-inflammatory cytochine response in rheumatoid synovitis
No full textIn RA, synovial CD30+ cells would be part of the Th2‐type response acting as a homeostatic mechanism to counterbalance the proinflammatory events driven by Th1‐type cells/cytokines. They would exert their anti‐inflammatory activity through the synergistic action of IL‐4 and IL‐10. The possibility of evaluating such activity by simply measuring the levels of circulating sCD30, in all phases of the disease (relapse, remission) and in response to therapy, may offer better insight into the mechanisms involved in controlling disease evolution
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