Primary localised pleural neurofibroma: expanding the spectrum of spindle cell tumours of the pleura.

Aims: Primary localised pleural neoplasms are a rare group of thoracic tumours, with solitary fibrous tumour representing the most frequently encountered entity. Two cases of localised pleural neurofibromas involving the pleura are described.

Methods And Results: The patients were both female: 78 and 29 years of age.

Effect of neutralizing antibodies to IL-10 and C5 on the renal damage caused by a pathogenic human anti-dsDNA antibody.

Objectives: There is considerable evidence suggesting that anti-double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (anti-dsDNA) antibodies are involved in the pathogenesis of lupus nephritis. It was shown previously using severe combined immune deficient (SCID) mice that when the hybridomas secreting human immunoglobulin G (IgG) anti-dsDNA antibodies, RH14 and DIL-6, were implanted intraperitoneally the antibodies produced by RH14, but not DIL-6, deposited in the kidneys, caused pathological changes in the renal tissues and induced proteinuria. In this study we have further analysed the effect of activated terminal complement proteins and interleukin-10 (IL-10) in the pathogenesis of glomerulonephritis caused by the RH-14.

[Current opinion on diagnosis of primary Sjögren's syndrome].

For many years, Sjögren's syndrome was a purely descriptive diagnosis of symptoms such as xerostomia and dry eye (sicca syndrome). The different classification criteria proposed for Sjögren's syndrome comprise a rather variable spectrum of diagnostic possibilities, at one extreme of which we find an array of exclusively objective parameters while, at the other extreme, the objective parameters and patients' symptoms balance out. Improved accuracy in the diagnosis of Sjögren's syndrome can be attained only through the combination of a symptoms questionnaire, histopathology, scintigraphy or sialography or evaluation of the unstimulated salivary flow and specific autoantibodies.

A primary tumour of the oesophagus with both melanocytic and schwannian differentiation. Melanocytic schwannoma or malignant melanoma?

A 76 year old white woman presented with a four month history of dysphagia and weight loss. Clinical, radiological, and endoscopic examination revealed a pigmented mass in the lower third of the oesophagus. The preoperative diagnosis, including biopsy examination, was that of malignant melanoma.

The renal pathology of primary antiphospholipid syndrome: a distinctive form of endothelial injury.

Some features of the vascular and glomerular pathology of primary antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) are well recognized, but we describe novel glomerular ultrastructural changes that we consider to be pathognomonic of APS. Renal biopsies from eight patients with APS were examined by light and electron microscopy. All had anti-cardiolipin antibodies, and the clinical presentation ranged from fulminant multi-system disease to isolated proteinuria.