Cytokines and Chemokines Are Detectable in Swivel-Derived Exhaled Breath Condensate (SEBC): A Pilot Study in Mechanically Ventilated Patients.

Unlabelled: . Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) is a noninvasive method to collect samples from the respiratory tract. Usually, a thermoelectric cooling module is required to collect sufficient EBC volume for analyses.

Rheumatoid factor isotype and Ro epitope distribution in primary Sjögren syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis with keratoconjunctivitis sicca.

Primary Sjögren syndrome (pS) is associated with autoantibodies such as rheumatoid factor (RF) and anti-nuclear antibodies such as anti-Ro (SS-A) and/or La (SS-B). Recent developments within autoimmune diagnostics allow quantitation of RF subclasses and anti-Ro epitopes. Will this refinement by autoimmune diagnostics help predicting development of extraglandular manifestations (EGM) in pS patients? A cohort of pS and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients with keratoconjunctivitis sicca (n = 35 and 16, resp) was included.

A multiplex assay to rapidly exclude HLA-DQ2.5 and HLA-DQ8 expression in patients at risk for celiac disease.

Background: Celiac disease (CD) is an inflammatory disorder of the small intestine induced by gluten ingestion. CD has a strong genetic association with human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ2.5 and HLA-DQ8.

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia specific T-cell subset alterations are clone-size dependent and not present in monoclonal B lymphocytosis.

In patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), effector and memory CD4 + and CD8 + T cells are expanded. We investigated whether these CLL specific T-cell expansions also occur in monoclonal B lymphocytosis (MBL), the pre-leukemic state of CLL, which is currently distinguished from CLL by an arbitrarily chosen cut-off value of CD19 of 5.0 × 10(9)/L.

Rapid HLA-B27 screening with real-time TaqMan PCR: a clinical validation in the Dutch population.

Background: Human leukocyte antigen B27 (HLA-B27) is strongly associated with ankylosing spondylitis. The B27 allele is present in 90% of patients with this disease, whereas it is present in only 9% of Caucasians. Molecular detection of HLA-B27 is traditionally based on allele specific amplification of exon 2 (Olerup method) or exon 3 (Dominguez method) by PCR, followed by gel analysis.

Comparison of two interferon-gamma assays and tuberculin skin test for tracing tuberculosis contacts.

Background: The tuberculin skin test (TST) has low specificity. QuantiFERON-TB Gold (QFT-G) and T-SPOT.TB are based on interferon (IFN)-gamma responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific antigens.

HLA-DQB1*0201: a marker for good prognosis in British and Dutch patients with sarcoidosis.

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQB1 is one of the intriguing candidate genes in sarcoidosis. We performed high resolution molecular HLA-DQB1 typing on two groups of white patients (British [UK] and Dutch [NL]) in order to investigate the relationship between 19 DQB1 alleles and disease severity and progression. A total of 803 individuals were studied (133 UK and 102 NL patients, and 354 UK and 214 NL control subjects).