Immunodeficiency: Quantitative and qualitative phagocytic cell defects.

The immune system is divided into two major branches: innate and adaptive. The innate immune system is the body's first line of defense and rapidly responds in a nonspecific manner to various microorganisms, foreign materials, or injuries. Phagocytes, which include macrophages, monocytes, and neutrophils, are innate immune cells that can surround and kill microorganisms, ingest foreign material, and remove dead cells.

A data accounting system for clinical investigators.

Clinical investigators often preprocess, process, and analyze their data without benefit of formally organized research centers to oversee data management. This article outlines a practical three-file structure to help guide these investigators track and document their data through processing and analyses. The proposed process can be implemented without additional training or specialized software.

A quality measurement framework for managed care organizations.

This article presents a framework for a quality measurement system and its corresponding principles for quality improvement within a managed care environment. The quality measurement system comprises four modes: quality assessment, comparison, improvement, and system evaluation. If these modes are to be effective, the measurement system must incorporate the following five principles: (a) maintain and continually improve the data systems, (b) develop and utilize sound methodology and valid indicators, (c) build a competent measurement team, (d) develop effective strategies for implementation, and (e) protect member confidentiality.

Profiling primary care physicians for a new managed care network.

We developed methods for comparing physicians who would be selected to participate in a major employer's self-insurance program. These methods used insurance claims data to identify and profile physicians according to deviations from prevailing practice and outcome patterns, after considering differences in case-mix and severity of illness among the patients treated by those providers. The discussion notes the usefulness and limitations of claims data for this and other purposes.

Using claims data to select primary care physicians for a managed care network.

An insurance claims databased profiling system was developed to help select new primary care physicians (PCPs) for a managed care network. PCPs (family practitioners, internists, and pediatricians) were ranked based on how closely their actual use of outpatient services conformed to the predictions of a mathematical model that adjusted for differences in age, sex, and case mix.

Growth modulation effects of synthetic steroids on rat prostatic adenocarcinoma and human breast adenocarcinoma cells in vitro.

Treatment of carcinoma of the reproductive organs using both an antiproliferative agent to inhibit cell growth and a cytotoxic agent to kill the neoplastic cells represents an attractive approach to therapy. By using steroids to achieve both effects, it may be possible to avoid some of the dose-limiting side effects of conventional antiproliferative or cytotoxic agents. We screened in vitro 23 selected steroids against four rat prostatic carcinoma cell lines and one human breast carcinoma cell line.

Combined therapeutic effects of conventional agents and an immunomodulator, PSK, on rat prostatic adenocarcinoma.

Growth alteration effects of an immunomodulator, PSK, were investigated individually and in association with conventional chemotherapeutic agents cyclophosphamide, cisplatin and fluorouracil in an experimental prostatic cancer model. Copenhagen rats had subcutaneous tumors induced by injections of cells cultured in vitro from a highly metastatic hormonally unresponsive subline of the Dunning rat prostatic tumor, MAT-LyLu. Treatment with conventional agents and the immunomodulator agent individually and in combination began three days after tumor cell inoculation.

Effects of the immunomodulator PSK on growth of human prostate adenocarcinoma in immunodeficient mice.

Tumor growth alterations were studied using an immunomodulator, PSK. Four human prostate tumor lines were grown in two types of immunodeficient mice. Two of the lines were selected because they are able to metastasize to lungs in host animals.

Conventional chemotherapeutic agents combined with DMSO or DFMO in treatment of rat prostate carcinoma.

Chemotherapy for prostatic carcinoma is usually reserved for those patients who have failed conventional therapy. These patients generally are in poor health and tolerate chemotherapy poorly. If doses of conventional agents could be decreased without altering cytotoxic activity, then conventional chemotherapy could become an attractive treatment modality.

Effect of DMSO and DFMO on rat prostate tumor growth.

An anaplastic, metastatic subline of the Dunning rat tumor was exposed to non-cytodestructive doses of the cellular differentiation agents dimethylsulfoxide and difluoromethylornithine. Copenhagen rats hosting prostate tumors were evaluated by comparing solid tumor growth resulting from injection of treated cells with solid tumor growth of untreated control cells. Results showed significantly slower solid tumor growth after a 15 day in vitro exposure of cells to either agent, after oral treatment of host animals for 20 days with either agent before injection of untreated tumor cells, and after oral treatment of host animals with either agent initiated on the day of untreated tumor cell injection.

Oncogene expression in prostate cancer: Dunning R3327 rat dorsal prostatic adenocarcinoma system.

Steady-state levels of myc, fos, p53, sis, and neu mRNAs were measured in eight variants derived from the Dunning R3327 rat prostate adenocarcinoma and compared to levels in normal dorsal prostate. Expression of the myb and erbB oncogenes in the Dunning tumors was below the limits of detection. Myc, p53, and sis mRNA levels in all tumors were at or above control levels.

Expression of ras proto-oncogenes in the Dunning R3327 rat prostatic adenocarcinoma system.

Steady-state levels of c-Ha-ras mRNA were measured in eight sublines of the Dunning R3327 rat prostatic adenocarcinoma. As a control, normal dorsal prostate tissue was studied. Increased expression of c-Ha-ras is associated with tumor progression in one lineage of the Dunning R3327 system (H to AT1 to MAT-Lu and MAT-Ly-Lu).

In vitro growth inhibition of Dunning rat prostate tumor by bone marrow factor.

Normal Copenhagen rat bone marrow was assayed for growth inhibition of cultured MAT LyLu rat prostate tumor cells. A marrow-derived factor was identified that had significant growth inhibitory activity in vitro against MAT LyLu as well as against DU-145 human prostate tumor and MBT-2 mouse bladder tumor cells but that was noninhibitory to normal rat fibroblasts. The factor was stable to degradation by acid, heat, freezing, trypsin, and carboxypeptidase B.

Serum hormone levels among patients with prostatic carcinoma or benign prostatic hyperplasia and clinic controls.

This study sought to identify differences in serum hormone levels between prostatic cancer (CaP) patients, benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients, and clinic controls (CC). Serum testosterone, estradiol, and prolactin values were obtained from 35 CaP, 42 BPH, and 161 CC patients attending a single medical center between January 1984 and April 1985. Relative risk estimates adjusted for age and race were calculated to compare hormone values between each case group and the CC.

Androgen receptors detected by autoradiography in prostatic carcinoma and benign prostatic hyperplastic tissue.

Androgen receptor (AR) content in prostatic tissues from patients with either cancer or benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is of interest from at least two standpoints: receptors may be a feature of the pathogenesis of these conditions, and they may be important to the management and prognosis of prostatic cancer patients. For these reasons, a quantitative autoradiographic assay for AR content in prostatic tissues has been developed. Application of autoradiography to rodent tissues yielded results that were highly correlated with those from biochemical assays.

Medical, life-style, and occupational risk factors for prostate cancer.

Information on suspected risk factors for prostate cancer was obtained from in-person interviews as part of a case-control study of tissue sex hormone receptors and serum hormone levels. The risk factors examined were medical history (including venereal disease), sexual history, smoking, alcohol consumption, and occupational exposures. Study subjects were 40 prostate cancer patients and 64 benign prostatic hyperplasia controls who were newly diagnosed during 1984-1985 at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill.

A preliminary study of urinary transferrin as a marker for prostatic cancer.

Traditional serum markers used in the diagnosis of prostate cancer lack sensitivity and specificity. Prostatic fluid is in direct contact with the prostate epithelium and, thus, has been investigated as a better source for potentially useful markers. Since prostatic fluid contents can enter the urine directly through the urethra, without prerequisite entry into blood, proteins present in significant quantities in prostatic fluid represent candidate markers for entry into the urine, particularly in diseases affecting the prostate epithelium, such as adenocarcinoma.

Autoradiographic localization of tritium-labeled dihydrotestosterone in human vas deferens.

The human vas deferens was examined autoradiographically for the presence and distribution of androgen receptors. Samples of vas deferens from the region proximal to the testis and the region at the internal inguinal ring were incubated in vitro with tritium-labeled dihydrotestosterone ([3H]-DHT). Frozen sections of tissue were mounted on autoradiographic emulsion-coated slides and exposed for up to three weeks to demonstrate cells with nuclear accumulations of radioactive hormone.

Adenylate kinase: an oncodevelopmental marker in an animal model for human prostatic cancer.

Data are presented demonstrating that adenylate kinase (AK; EC 2.7.4.

Oncodevelopmental enzymes of the Dunning rat prostatic adenocarcinoma.

In this paper, data are presented which demonstrate that adenylate kinase and creatine kinase are oncodevelopmental enzymes in the rat prostate. The Dunning tumor (dorsal rat prostate) was used as a model system; four sublines of the tumor (R3327-H, R3327-AT, MAT Lu, and MAT LyLu) were studied. The tumor lines were maintained as solid tumors in syngeneic rats (Copenhagen) and as monolayers in tissue culture.

Autoradiographic localization of estrogen and androgen target cells in human and rat prostate carcinoma.

The distribution of estrogen target cells within the Dunning R3327-H rat prostate tumor following intravenous injection of tritiated estradiol into rat hosts was compared to the distribution obtained following incubation of a 2 mm. sample of the tumor with tritiated estradiol in organ culture. No difference was observed, indicating that the in vitro method was an effective approach for autoradiographic analysis of tumor biopsy samples.

Dimethylsulfoxide-induced changes in a rat prostate adenocarcinoma.

A variety of agents can induce mammalian tumor cell lines to acquire characteristics of the normal cell counterpart. Dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) has been an effective differentiating agent in many tumor cell lines. In the present study a Dunning rat prostate tumor subline, MAT LyLu, available as an in vitro continuous cell culture was treated with 2.

Combined therapeutic effects of an immunomodulator, PSK, and chemotherapy with carboquone on rat bladder carcinoma.

Responses of bladder cancer in ACI rats to combination therapy with an immunomodulator, PSK, and an alkylating agent, carboquone, are reported. PSK is a protein-bound polysaccharide isolated from Basidiomycetes, and carboquone is the alkylating agent 2,5-bis(1-aziridinyl)-3-(2-hydroxy-1-methanoxyethyl)-6-methyl-p- benzoquinone carbonate, molecular weight 3,214. The immunomodulator, PSK, was shown to enhance the effectiveness of the chemotherapeutic agent, carboquone.

In vitro characterization of MAT LyLu: a Dunning rat prostate adenocarcinoma tumor subline.

Prostate carcinoma has been a therapeutic challenge. The Dunning tumor, a rat prostate adenocarcinoma tumor model, has been used to evaluate prostate carcinoma treatment protocols. The Dunning tumor subline, MAT LyLu , as described in this report, has been established and characterized as an in vitro continuous cell culture.

Effect of media and growth promoters on in vitro cultivation of normal murine urinary bladder epithelium.

Growth potential of normal murine epithelium was investigated by means of 3 culture media: RPMI 1640 with fetal calf serum, Dulbecco's with fetal calf serum and McCoy's with horse serum. The effect of 3 growth promoters was tested separately with each of the 3 media. A total of 886 explants were cultured from 29 murine bladders and epithelial outgrowth was obtained in 35.