Regulatory strategies to facilitate surgical innovation.

Phoebe Mounts, PhD, Esq, is a partner in the Food and Drug Administration Practice Group in the Washington, DC, office of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP. She counsels clients on regulatory issues for medical devices, drugs, and biologics. Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, she was on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in the Department of Molecular Microbiology, Immunology, and Infectious Diseases.

Immune responses in tuberculosis: antibodies and CD4-CD8 lymphocytes with vascular adhesion molecules and cytokines (chemokines) cause a rapid antigen-specific cell infiltration at sites of bacillus Calmette-Guérin reinfection.

Rabbit primary dermal bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) lesions were compared with reinfection BCG lesions in order to gain insight into how immune responses protect against clinical tuberculosis. As early as 3 hr, a marked infiltration of macrophages and lymphocytes occurred in the reinfection group, while very little cell infiltration occurred in the primary group. It seems that only an antigen-antibody reaction could produce such an immediate pronounced antigen-specific chemotactic effect, because very few lymphocytes are normally present in the skin.

Nonspecific and immune-specific up-regulation of cytokines in rabbit dermal tuberculous (BCG) lesions.

To our knowledge, this is the first sequential study of cytokines in tissue sections of developing and healing tuberculous (BCG) lesions. In situ hybridization, immunohistochemical, and RT-PCR techniques were used. Cytokine mRNAs showed a biphasic pattern.

Coinfection of HPV-11 and HPV-16 in a case of laryngeal squamous papillomas with severe dysplasia.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) types 6 and 11 have been associated with benign laryngeal papilloma, while HPV-16 is occasionally associated with laryngeal carcinoma. In this study, a case of laryngeal squamous papillomas with severe dysplasia was evaluated for the presence of HPV infection. The biopsy specimens were taken from a 58-year-old female patient at two different time points 3 months apart.