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High recurrence and rebleeding rates have been reported when endoscopic sclerotherapy has been performed on patients with esophageal varices. We studied the relationship between embolization range and recurrence rate in 26 patients in whom percutaneous transhepatic portography was carried out before and after sclerotherapy. Patients were divided into complete and incomplete embolization groups. The complete embolization group consisted of 16 patients whose esophageal varices had disappeared and in whom embolization of the feeders to the varices had occurred. The incomplete embolization group consisted of 10 patients whose esophageal varices had disappeared, but no embolization had occurred. Recurrence rates within 2 yr after the treatment were compared between complete and incomplete embolization groups. The recurrence rates in the respective groups were 6.7% (1 of 15) and 70.0% (7 of 10), indicating a significant difference between the two groups (p less than 0.05) and indicating that embolization of both esophageal varices and their feeders is essential to lower the recurrence rate after sclerotherapy.

Humoral antibodies have been demonstrated by antiglobulin consumption tests to be present in the serum of virtually all patients after renal homotransplantation. The most completely characterized was a γG immunoglobulin distinct from the Forssman antibody which reacts against sheep but not against human red cell antigens, and which absorbs selectively against panels of human liver, kidney or white blood cells. This antibody appeared within a few days or weeks after transplantation, usually shortly after a rejection episode, and was more or less continuously detectable thereafter. The antibody was found in all of 10 patients studied during the first 4 post-transplant months, and in 13 of 14 patients tested from 4 months to more than 2 years after operation. Preliminary observations are included on another humoral antibody which does not react with sheep RBC stromata, but which can also be measured with a modified antiglobulin consumption test. The latter antibody was less commonly demonstrable, but it also exhibited specific absorption characteristics when tested against a panel of leukocytes obtained from volunteers. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the possible value of such sera for histocompatibility typing, as well as the possible role of such antibodies in promoting homograft enhancement.

It has been said that heterologous antilymphocyte serum is highly specific in that (a) it lyses or agglutinates equally well the white cells from all members of the species which provided the immunizing lymphoid tissue3 and (b) that it does not react with the white cells from other species.1, 3, 4, 6 The fore-going concepts were based upon studies employing anterisera of relatively low titer. These questions have been re-examined with antidog- and antihuman-lymphoid globulin of high titer raised in horses with repeated subcutaneous immunization with lymph node, thymus, and spleen tissue.5 It has been found that the white cells of individuals within the species population, against which the anti-bodies were directed, were variably affected by the immune globulin. Furthermore, it has been shown that there is not an absolute species specificity inasmuch as some reactivity against the white cells of at least seven widely divergent species is present in either antidog- or antihuman-lymphoid globulin.