Normalization of lung function following treatment of secondary usual interstitial pneumonia: a case report.

Usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) is the most common idiopathic interstitial pneumonia (IIP) and is associated with a poor prognosis and poor responsiveness to immunosuppressive therapy. We present a case of a woman with steroid-responsive biopsy-proven UIP with significant and sustained improvement in pulmonary function. A female in her 40s presented following a one-year history of progressive dyspnea, a 20 lb weight loss, and fatigue.

Correlation of regional emphysema and lung cancer: a lung tissue research consortium-based study.

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer are linked because both airflow obstruction and emphysema, on computer tomography, are independent risk factors for lung cancer. However, the local risk of malignancy relative to development of regional emphysema has not yet been defined. Specifically, it is not known if primary lung cancers are associated with regions of worse emphysema within individual patients.

Osseous sarcoidosis: a case of evolving MR appearances correlating with clinical symptoms.

Osseous sarcoidosis of the axial skeleton is typically asymptomatic and not routinely imaged with MRI. The natural history of sarcoidosis is generally felt to be resolution spontaneously or with treatment, or unremitting progression. We report a case of recurrent active symptomatic disease after an initial response to immunomodulator treatment with an unusual halo of T2-hyperintensity surrounding treated fibrofatty vestigial lesions.

TNF-alpha drives matrix metalloproteinase-9 in squamous oral carcinogenesis.

Objectives/hypothesis: It is well known that invasion is a seminal event in the progression of oral and other head and neck carcinoma sites. We have previously demonstrated tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha and its dependent cytokines are upregulated in saliva during oral carcinogenesis. TNF-dependent events stimulate nuclear factor (NF)-kappaB and many NF-kappaB-dependent genes are associated with cancer progression.

Connective tissue degradation by invasive rat bladder carcinomas: action of nonspecific proteinases on collagenous matrices.

The invasive RBTCC-8 rat bladder carcinoma cell line (passage number, greater than 100) and its derivates, the RBTCC-8 tumor isografts and the 1-RBTCC-8 daughter cell line (fourth passage), express proteolytic activities of broad substrate specificity, which allow them to efficiently degrade extracellular (collagenous) matrices. Cell-associated, collagenolytic activity is evidenced by the release of hydroxyproline from collagen substrates of types I and IV, by visualizing the low-molecular-weight collagen breakdown products on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels, and by the depth of invasion into extracellular matrices in our bone invasion assays. Fractionated by diethylaminoethyl column chromatography, the major collagenolytic activities against collagens of types I and IV coelute in a relatively narrow peak within a NaCl gradient.