T-cell subsets in sarcoidosis: an immunocytochemical investigation of blood, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and prescalenic lymph nodes from eight patients.

T-lymphocyte subsets in peripheral blood, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and prescalenic lymph nodes from eight patients with sarcoidosis were evaluated with monoclonal antibodies. Both in lung and lymph nodes significant increases in helper T cells were demonstrated, except in patients with stage III pulmonary disease or with unaffected lymph nodes. A good statistical correlation was observed between the activity of the disease (expressed by an increased ratio of helper to suppressor/cytotoxic T cells) in bronchoalveolar fluid and in lymph node cell suspensions from each patient.

[Antituberculosis activity today].

The actual epidemiological aspects of tuberculosis suggest some changes in interventions once considered as essential. Then, at level of prevention, today antitubercular action must purpose to efface every extensive programme and the BCG-vaccination obliged; to definitively stop the isoniazid prophylaxis; to give up the usual sanitary practices against tubercular contagion. At diagnostic and therapeutic level, the old antitubercular structures are still indispensable to correctly tackle a problem that, though reshuffled, yet it still subsists.

Scalene node biopsy in diagnosis of intrathoracic diseases. Clinical notes.

Scalene node biopsy (SNB) still represents a useful diagnostic method in the difficult interpretation of hilar-mediastinal adenopathies. Of 858 sample cases of intrathoracic pathologies of various etiology, SNB indicated a high histological degree of positivity in sarcoidosis in stages I and I + II (86%) and in malignant lymphomas (91%). As a result, the authors believe that when faced with a process of localization prevailing in the hilar-mediastinal lymphatic system, the SNB is a preferable treatment and should be performed before a mediastinoscopy.