Myasthenia gravis with thymus hyperplasia and pure red cell aplasia.

A case of myasthenia gravis (MG) with thymus hyperplasia and pure red cell aplasia (PRCA) is reported. A 57-year-old woman was diagnosed as having MG and was treated with thymectomy 26 years ago. The histology of the resected thymus was thymic lymphoid follicular hyperplasia.

Soluble c-kit receptor mobilizes hematopoietic stem cells to peripheral blood in mice.

Objective: The mechanisms of mobilization of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) from bone marrow to peripheral blood (PB) by cytokines are poorly understood. One hypothesis is that cytokines disrupt cytoadhesive interactions of stem cells with bone marrow stroma. The soluble portion of c-kit (s-kit) binds stem cell factor (SCF) and can specifically block the ability of SCF to bind HSC.

Primary effusion lymphoma of the left scrotum.

A 51-year-old man without human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus was admitted with left scrotum swelling and hydrocele. The cytological finding of fluid in the left scrotum revealed malignant lymphoma, and the immunophenotypic analysis and monoclonal rearrangement of immunoglobulin heavy chain demonstrated B-cell lymphoma. However, no solid tumor of lymphoma was identified in the specimen following a left orchiectomy, or in any other body site and genomic human herpes virus-8 and Epstein-Barr virus were not detected in the lymphoma cells.

Serum soluble IL-6 receptor levels during the mobilization of stem cells to peripheral blood.

Serum soluble interleukin-6 receptors (sIL-6R) have been demonstrated to play an important role in hematopoiesis. We report here that serum sIL-6R levels reflect proliferative kinetics of the progenitors after stimulation by chemotherapy plus granulocyte colony-stimulating factor. Serum sIL-6R were serially evaluated in 26 courses of peripheral blood (PB) stem cell collections in 16 patients using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.