Therapeutic Effects of Anti-Bone Morphogenetic Protein and Activin Membrane-Bound Inhibitor Treatment in Psoriasis and Arthritis.

Objective: The transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) inhibitor BAMBI (bone morphogenetic protein and activin membrane-bound inhibitor) has been shown to control differentiation of CD4+ T lymphocytes into either tolerogenic Treg cells or pathogenic Th17 cells, through the regulation of TGFβ and interleukin-2 (IL-2) signaling strength. The present study was undertaken to explore the potential beneficial effects of this strategy of pharmacologic inhibition using novel anti-BAMBI monoclonal antibodies (mAb) in different experimental murine models of chronic skin and joint inflammatory/autoimmune disease.

Methods: Development of Saccharomyces cerevisiae mannan-induced psoriatic arthritis (MIP) (n = 18-30 mice per group), imiquimod-induced skin psoriasis (n = 20-30 mice per group), or type II collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) (n = 13-16 mice per group) was analyzed in a total of 2-5 different experiments with either wild-type (WT) or BAMBI-deficient B10.

Effects of estrogen on the proportion of stem cells in the breast.

There is increasing evidence that breast cancers contain tumor-initiating cells with stem cell properties. The importance of estrogen in the development of the mammary gland and in breast cancer is well known, but the influence of estrogen on the stem cell population has not been assessed. We show that estrogen reduces the proportion of stem cells in the normal human mammary gland and in breast cancer cells.

Simultaneous cytomorphologic and multiparametric flow cytometric analysis on lymph node samples is faster than and as valid as histopathologic study to diagnose most non-Hodgkin lymphomas.

We evaluated the validity and accuracy of cytomorphology and multiparametric flow cytometry (C-FCM) in diagnosing oncohematologic disease in 223 consecutive lymph node biopsy specimens from patients with lymphadenopathy, from 2004 to 2007. C-FCM and histopathologic studies were interpreted independently by hematologists and pathologists, respectively. C-FCM detected neoplastic disorders in 133 samples (59.

Xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis: clinical, sonographic, and CT findings in 26 patients.

Objective: The purpose of our study was to evaluate the sonographic and CT features of xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis, correlating the pathologic and surgical findings.

Materials And Methods: Xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis was pathologically diagnosed in 26 patients from January 1996 to August 1998. The patients were 15 women and 11 men with a mean age of 63 years.

[Benign cervical mesenchymoma].

Mesenchymoma are growths made up for two or more mesenchyme derivatives that normally not joint in the same tumor, with the exception of the connective tissue which appears in all tumors of mesenchymal lineage. Benign mesenchymoma is a rare tumor more frequent in extremities and peri-renal area or, very rarely in head and neck territories, being the oropharynx the most encountered sitting in the latter place. The paper reports a clinical case of benign cervical mesenchymoma of a long course, more than 20 years, and big size, asymptomatic and diagnosed through fine needle biopsy.