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Objectives: To evaluate the clinical characteristics of patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) in the setting of a large cohort of systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients, and to analyse the differences according to the SSc subtype (following the modification of classification criteria of the American College of Rheumatology for SSc proposed by LeRoy and Medsger), factors are associated with moderate-to-severe impairment of lung function, as well as mortality and causes of death.Methods: A descriptive study was performed, using the available data from the Spanish Scleroderma Study Group.Results: Twenty-one referral centers participated in the registry. By April 2014, 1374 patients with SSc had been enrolled, and 595 of whom (43%) had ILD: 316 (53%) with limited cutaneous SSc (lcSSc), 240 (40%) with diffuse cutaneous SSc (dcSSc), and 39 (7%) with SSc sine scleroderma (ssSSc). ILD in the lcSSc and the ssSSc subsets tended to develop later, and showed a less impaired forced vital capacity (FVC) and a ground glass pattern on high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) less frequently, compared with the dcSSc subset. Factors related to an FVC < 70% of predicted in the multivariate analysis were: dcSSc, positivity to anti-topoisomerase I antibodies, a ground glass pattern on HCRT, an active nailfold capillaroscopy pattern, lower DLco, older age at symptoms onset, and longer time between symptoms onset and ILD diagnosis. Finally, SSc-associated mortality and ILD-related mortality were highest in dcSSc patients, whereas that related to pulmonary arterial hypertension was highest in those with lcSSc-associated ILD.Conclusions: Our study indicates that ILD constitutes a remarkable complication of SSc with significant morbidity and mortality, which should be borne in mind in all three subgroups (lcSSc, dcSSc, and ssSSc). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assuming a threshold of 2 × 107 nucleated cells (NC)/kg body weight required for transplantation and 10 ± 5 × 108 NC per cord blood (CB) unit (n = 1828, July 1997), 100%, 65% and 25% of the CB units stored in the CB Bank Düsseldorf contain sufficient NC to engraft patients of 10 kg, 35 kg and 50–70 kg, respectively. Thus, there is a potential limitation for the use of CB in adults which, however, may be overcome by ex vivo expansion of cells important in the different phases of engraftment. Therefore, four combinations of SCF, Flt3-L, IL-3, erythropoietin and GM-CSF as well as three media were evaluated for their capacity to amplify hematopoietic progenitors. A prerequisite for expansion was the significantly higher recovery of CD34+ cells, colony-forming cells (CFC) and long-term culture-initiating cells (LTC-IC) by thawing cryopreserved CB units with an isotonic albumin/dextran solution. When CD34+ CB cells were cultured with the four cytokine combinations in H5100 medium, all combinations promoted an expansion of total cells (43 to 356-fold) and CFC (49 to 462-fold) within 7 days, however, early progenitors as defined by mixed-colony formation (CFU-GEMM) were substantially amplified only with SCF, Flt3-L plus IL-3 (94.3 ± 62.4-fold). H5100 medium or a serum-free medium supplemented with SCF, Flt3-L plus IL-3 were superior to 20% FCS/RPMI-1640 medium in the expansion of all progenitor cell types and were similarly effective in supporting the amplification of total cells, CFC, CFU-GM, BFU-E/CFU-E and LTC-IC (maximum at day 7: 6.7 ± 3.4-fold and 5.5 ± 0.5-fold, respectively). However, the serum-free medium promoted a significantly higher expansion of CFU-GEMM (176.9 ± 81.7-fold) than H5100 medium (83.5 ± 26.2-fold) at day 7 and only under serum-free conditions, CFU-GEMM were maintained over 14 days in tissue culture. These results demonstrate that committed... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A primary malignant melanoma of the gallbladder in a 44-years-old man is presented. The typical pathologic findings in the now eight reported cases are analysed. The clinical course of the present case was determined by multiple metastases to the brain. The histogenesis of these rare tumors of the gallbladder is still obscure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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An experimental investigation on electrophoresis of calcium oxalate monohydrate in several liquid mixtures (methanol-, ethanol-, 2-propanol-, and methanol-acetonewater) is described. The electrophoretic transport is considered from the view-point of the Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes. Linear relations have always been found between the mass flux and the applied electric field. The ζ-potential of the interface C.O.M./liquid mixture has been estimated by using the classial theory of electrophoretic mobility of colloidal particles. The influence of the composition of the mixture on the electrophoretic coefficient has been discussed on the basis of the variation of ζ-potential, viscosity and dielectric constant with the molar fraction of alcohol for binary mixtures and acetone for ternary mixtures. The concentration dependence of the electrophoretic coefficient is found to be linear only in the latter case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]