[Stomatological manifestations in Sjögren's disease and syndrome].

For diagnosis of SS and SD and the detection of early stages of disease one should necessarily take into account the symptom complex of "major" (salivary gland enlargement, xerostomia, exacerbation of parotitis) and "minor" stomatological signs (multiple cervical caries, dry lips, perlèche, mycotic and herpetic stomatitis, lymphadenopathy). The initial, marked and late stages were defined according to a degree of expression of stomatological manifestations. The initial stage prevailed in SS, the late stage in SD.

[Role of histiocytic and parenchymatous elements of the liver in biosynthesis of reactive blood glycoproteins (haptoglobin and ceruloplasmin)].

Synthesis of haptoglobin and ceruloplasmin was found to occur in liver parenchyma under conditions of obligatory participation of the tissue mesenchymal structural elements. Dependence of the blood glycoproteins hyperproduction on the processes of proliferation, occurring in hystiocytic structural elements of liver, was detected after administration into rabbits of zymosan, which stimulated the reticuloendothelial cells, of turpentine (causing inflammation in subcutaneous fatty tissue) or of intracellular cytoplasmic soluble antigens of beta-haemolytic streptococcus A.

[Formation and destruction of the skin collagen structures in systemic scleroderma].

Histological, electron microscopic, and morphometric studies of skin biopsies from 70 patients with systemic sclerodermia showed an increase in biosynthetic processes both in the affected and nonaffected parts of the skin. Enhanced neofibrillogenesis was found only in areas of sclerodermic lesions. Abnormalities in newly formed collagen structures as well as splitting of newly formed collagen fibrillae into microfibrillae were observed.

[Study of an articular cartilage in rheumatoid arthritis by the immunofluorescence method].

The immunomorphological examinations of 20 biopsy specimens of articular cartilage in rheumatoid arthritis at various stages of the pathological process showed immunoglobulins of different classes and complement (C'3) to penetrate into the articular cartilage. In early stages mostly IgG was detected, and with increasing destructive processes in the matrix IgM was found. A certain tropism in the distribution of immunoglobulins in the cartilage matrix to the zones of chondrocytic capsules was observed which could be associated with the direction of immune reactions towards chondrocytes.

[Interstitial microfibrils in the myocardium in rheumatic and congenital heart defects].

Electron-microscopic and electron-histochemical studies of biopsies of the myocardium from the patients suffering from rheumatic and congenital affections of the heart showed that hyperplasia of aperiodic argyrophilic and ruteniophilic microfibrillae served as the ultrastructural equivalent of coarsening of the reticular frame of the hypertrophic myocardium. Relapse of the rheumatic process is accompanied by irregulation and possibly by an increase in the number of microfibrillae due to their accelerated neoformation and defibrillation of the collagen fibrils with a periodicity of 640 A. There was traced no direct relationship between the amount of microfibrillar material on the surface of the muscle cells and the extent of destruction of their organellae; this, however, did not exclude the possible interrelation between the myocardial insufficiency and hyperplasia of the myofibrillae as an integral component of fibrosis and sclerosis of the myocardium.

[Morphologic changes in the chorio-allantoic membrane and organs of chick embryos inoculated with blood of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (concerning the viral etiology of systemic lupus erythematosus)].

Morphological studies of 14 chorionallantoic membranes and organs of chick embryos which had been infected on the 7--8th day of incubation with leucocytic mass from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus were carried out. Corresponding virological and morphological control studies were performed. The changes observed were repeatedly reproduced in multiple inoculations (from the 2nd to the 16th passage).

[Acid polysaccharides (glycosaminoglycans) of the articular cartilage in rheumatoid arthritis].

As a result of histochemical investigation of the articular hyaline cartilage in 22 pateints with rheumatoid arthritis data were obtained on the decrease and redistribution of acid polysaccharides glycosamine glucane including keratosulphates, which led to an impartment of the cartilage supply and development therein of destructive processes. It was established that the most pronounced changer occurred in the main substance of the cartilage; changes in chondrocytes, according to the authors, were of secondary nature.