The prevalence of antibodies to histones induced by procainamide in old people, in cancer patients, and in rheumatoid-like disease.

Antibodies to histones were found to be most commonly responsible for the positive antinuclear antibody (ANA) test in asymptomatic patients treated with procainamide, in old people, in patients with neoplastic diseases, and in young women affected with a rheumatoid-like disease. Only in a very few patients were antibodies to dDNA and nucleoproteins demonstrated. Antibodies to nDNA were not found.

Deposits of immunoglobulins and C3 in the walls of human renal arteries.

Ninety-one renal biopsies were examined by immunofluorescent staining for the presence of C3 and immunoglobulins in the walls of renal arteries (RAW), tubules and glomeruli. The diseases studied were non-systemic renal immune complex diseases, systemic diseases with kidney involvement, renal diseases with minimal pathological changes and histological normal kidneys. In a high percentage of cases C3 and, to a lesser degree, deposits of immunoglobulins were found in the RAW, the deposits being found both in immunological and non-immunological diseases.

Cholestatic jaundice: an immune response to prajmalium bitartrate.

Cholestatic jaundice associated with chills, pruritus and blood eosinophilia developed in a patient who received prajmalium bitartrate therapy for ventricular arrhythmia following acute myocardial infarction. Discontinuation of the drug resulted in a spontaneous improvement in the clinical and biochemical findings. Challenge by prajmalium bitartrate caused rapid reappearance of the clinical and biochemical features.

Circulating immune complexes in children with acute poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis.

Sera from 22 children with acute poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis were examined for circulating immune complexes (CIC) during the acute phase of the disease and six to eight months following its onset. CIC were found in 10 of 22 (45%) children during the acute phase and in 4 of 19 (21%) during follow-up. No correlation was found between the presence of CIC during the acute phase and disease severity as measured by several clinical and laboratory parameters.