Publications by authors named "Karsten Ostermann"

Chronic intramyocardial inflammation (inflammatory cardiomyopathy/DCMi) is linked to the pathogenesis of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) is involved in orchestrating cardiac muscle morphogenesis, but is down-regulated after embryogenesis. We investigated NCAM expression in adult DCM hearts, its possible association with DCMi-parameters, and with cardiomyocyte hypertrophy (CMH).

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Background: Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is etiopathogenically linked to intramyocardial inflammation, which is reflected by ICAM-1 abundance. We investigated whether soluble ICAM-1 (sICAM-1) levels in the sera of DCM patients are associated with intramyocardial ICAM-1 expression.

Methods: Immunohistochemically detected ICAM-1 expression was quantified semiquantitatively in endomyocardial biopsies from DCM patients (n=45; n=17 females; age: 48+/-15 years) and from n=12 donor hearts (controls) by a human observer (baseline vs.

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Background: We attempted to develop a digital image analysis (DIA) system for endomyocardial biopsies (EMBs) to reliably quantify a) biopsy quality, b) immunohistochemically-marked infiltrates, and c) cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) in relation to net heart area (HA) for the semi-automated diagnosis of inflammatory cardiomyopathy (InfCM).

Material/methods: 140 EMBs from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients and 14 autopsy heart samples (controls) were immunostained for T-lymphocytes (CD2, CD3, CD4, CD8), beta(2)-integrin+ infiltrates (CD18, LFA-1, Mac-1) and CAMs (immunoglobulin superfamily: ICAM-1, HLA class I, HLA DR, VCAM-1, CD58; selectins: CD62E and CD62P; and the beta(1)-integrin chain CD29). EMB quality was assessed visually on a three-point scale.

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