[Reference values (Z-score) of inlet and trabecular portion diameters of the right ventricle: First description in Spanish healthy children].

Introduction And Objectives: Right ventricle (RV) measurements are crucial for certain congenital heart diseases and various cardiovascular conditions. Echocardiographic RV diameters are especially useful for its assessment. Paediatric echocardiographic data standardisation in normal subjects is complex, scarce, and heterogeneous.

Factors associated to recurrent wheezing in infants under one year of age in the province of Salamanca, Spain: Is intervention possible? A predictive model.

Objectives: Wheezing is a very common problem in infants in the first months of life. The objective of this study is to identify risk factors that may be acted upon in order to modify the evolution of recurrent wheezing in the first months of life, and to develop a model based on certain factors associated to recurrent wheezing in nursing infants capable of predicting the probability of developing recurrent wheezing in the first year of life.

Methods: The sample was drawn from a cross-sectional, multicentre, descriptive epidemiological study based on the general population.

Wheezing and risk factors in the first year of life in Cantabria, Spain. The EISL study.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of wheezing during the first year of life in Cantabria, Spain and its associated risk factors.

Methodology: A cross-sectional, multicentre, descriptive epidemiological study was carried out in a representative sample of 958 infants in the first year of life, born in Cantabria. A previously validated and standardised written questionnaire was completed by the parents of infants seen between 12 and 15 months of age in the Primary Care Centres.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and their importance in asthma.

Asthma is a complex disease determined by the interaction of different genes and environmental factors. The first genetic investigations in asthma were candidate gene association studies and linkage studies. In recent years research has focused on association studies that scan the entire genome without any prior conditioning hypothesis: the so-called genome-wide association studies (GWAS).

Implications of cytokine genes in allergic asthma.

Asthma is a complex disease involving numerous mediator molecules and effector cells, in combination with a range of environmental determining factors. Cytokines play a key role in the physiopathological mechanisms of asthma; the study of the structure, regulation and variations of the genes that encode for these molecules is therefore crucial. Cytokines have extremely diverse roles, and exert effects both as activators and inhibitors of the innate and adaptive immune response.

The prostaglandin D2 receptor (PTGDR) gene in asthma and allergic diseases.

The prostaglandin D2 receptor (PTGDR) gene has been associated to asthma and related phenotypes by linking and association studies. Functional studies involving animal models and other expression studies based on in vitro cell models also point to a possible role of polymorphisms in the promoter region, in the differential binding of transcription factors, and thus in PTGDR expression, which appear to be associated to the development of asthma or of susceptibility to the disease.

Study of wheezing and its risk factors in the first year of life in the Province of Salamanca, Spain. The EISL Study.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of wheezing and its associated risk factors in infants in the first year of life in the province of Salamanca, Spain.

Methods: A multicentre, cross-sectional, descriptive epidemiological study was designed to evaluate a representative sample of 750 infants in the first year of life, born in the province of Salamanca between 1 June 2008 and 30 September 2009. The study was based on a previously validated and standardised written questionnaire administered among the parents of those children seen for control at 12 months of age in any of the Primary Care centres in the province of Salamanca.

Airborne pollen calendar of Salamanca, Spain, 2000-2007.

Background: The determination of pollen types and their proportions in the atmosphere of relevant urban areas have increasingly been evaluated in different regions. The final goal has been to elaborate a pollen calendar, providing data about the occurrence of pollen grains in the air, thus permitting medical treatment and prophylaxis.

Methods: An aerobiological study was carried out in the atmosphere of the city of Salamanca, Spain, during eight years (2000-2007) by means of a Hirst type volumetric spore trap.

Interactions between genes and the environment. Epigenetics in allergy.

Epigenetics is defined as those inheritable changes occurring in gene expression, without actual modification in the genic DNA sequence. Epigenetic factors are chemically stable, potentially reversible, and can be modulated or induced by environmental factors. In the case of allergic disease, epigenetics could explain not only the discordances observed between monozygous twins but also phenomena such as incomplete penetrance, variable expression, gender and progenitor effects, and sporadic cases.

Pollen calendar of the city of Salamanca (Spain). Aeropalynological analysis for 1981-1982 and 1991-1992.

We report a study on the contents of airborne pollen in the city of Salamanca (Spain) aimed at establishing a pollen calendar for the city for the yearly periods of maximum concentrations, relating these with quantifiable atmospheric variables over two two-year periods with an interval of 10 years between them: 1981-82 and 1991-92. The pollen was captured with Burkard spore-traps, based on Hirst's volumetric method. Determinations were made daily and were used to make preparations, previously stained with basic fuscin, for study under light microscopy at x 1,000 magnification.

[Evaluation of plasma zinc levels in patients with Down syndrome].

Using the atomic absorption spectroscopy technique, the plasma concentrations of zinc were measured in 32 patients with Down's syndrome (DS) and in 44 healthy controls (C). An obvious and significant decrease in the levels of this element was observed in the trisomic subjects (DS:124.5 +/- 21.

A study of the functions of polymorphonuclear neutrophil in patients with Down's syndrome.

Patients with Down's syndrome (DS) are predisposed to infectious diseases, particularly of the respiratory tract. Together with the occurrence of cardiac defects, this is one of the main determinants of their life expectancy. The aim of the present work was to study a series of immunological parameters that would allow us to evaluate the functional behaviour of the neutrophil polymorphonuclears of the patients with trisomy 21 and the possible relationship between this and the susceptibility of this kind of patient to such infections.

[Evaluation of the immune system in Down's syndrome patients].

The authors carry out a study to evaluate the immunoglobulin and complement factor levels and the populations and subpopulations of mononuclear cells enumerated by monoclonal antibodies, in Down's syndrome (DS) patients. The IgG, IgA and IgM immunoglobulins were significantly increased, and presented an age-dependence. The complement factors, C3 and C4 were normal.

Monocyte functional defects in rheumatoid arthritis.

Monocytes derived from peripheral blood of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) had a marked defect in their chemotactic and phagocytic activity. The chemotactic defect resides at a cellular level, while the phagocytic defect is serum-dependent. Both defects could be of importance in the pathogenicity of RA and the susceptibility to infection such patients show.

[Immunological pathogenesis of collagenosis].

The present paper contains an analysis of the essential factors which combine in the pathogeny of autoimmune illnesses, using Systemic Erythematous Lupus as a prototype. These patients present a hyperfunction of B lymphocytes due to either an intrinsic defect of these cells or disorders in the cells which regulate them which is translated into a high response to nuclear and lymphocytary antigens. The formation of circulating immunocomplexes in these patients would be responsible for the inflammatory vascular and tissue lesions which they present when the Complement is deposited and activated.

[Immunological diagnosis of collagen diseases and rheumatoid arthritis (author's transl)].

Most helpful immunological tests for diagnosis of connectivities are revised. Among them, antinuclear antibodies (AAN) are the most important. They are usually detected by immunofluorescence and show different patterns, being the peripheral one the most specific of SLE and it is related with antibodies anti-DNA which can make immunocomplexes DNA-anti-DNA and be the cause of lupic nephropathy.

[Thymus implant in a case of DiGeorge syndrome (author's transl)].

A boy with III-IV pharingeal pouch malformative syndrome, hypocalcemia and recurrent infections is presented. The immunological work-up disclosed deficiency in the specific cellular immunity with normal serum immunoglobulin levels. An adult thymus in Millipore diffusion chambers was implanted in the rectus adominalis muscle.

[Nezelof syndrome with secondary immunodeficiency (author's transl)].

A child with recurrent infections is presented. The frequent diarrhea leads to a severe malnutrition. The immunological work-up disclosed: absent IgA and low IgG serum levels, deficient cellular immunity and abnormal neutrophil chemotaxis.

[Common variable immunodeficiency (author's transl)].

In a boy initially diagnosed as X-linked hypogammaglobulinemia, the later clinical and analytical course and the application of new immunological techniques led to the new diagnosis of common variable immunodeficiency. The patient shows panhypogammaglobulinemia, a scarce number of plasma cells with a normal number of precursors and circulating B lymphocytes with membrane bound immunoglobulins and C3 receptors. Delayed hypersensitivity is absent despite normal amount of circulating T lymphocytes which were able to transform when stimulated by PHA.