Total prostate specific antigen stability confirmed after long-term storage of serum at -80C.

Purpose: We characterized the long-term stability of total prostate specific antigen in serum samples after storage at -80C from 2001 until 2007.

Materials And Methods: From the San Antonio Biomarkers of Risk biorepository we chose serum samples from white men 55.2 to 80.

Lymphocyte markers and natural killer cell activity in fibromyalgia syndrome: effects of low-dose, sublingual use of human interferon-alpha.

A clinical study was designed to utilize flow cytometric immunophenotyping and chromium release from cultured tumor target cells to characterize peripheral blood mononuclear leukocyte (PBML) subpopulations and natural killer activity in healthy normal controls (n = 18) and in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) at baseline (n = 124) and again after 6 weeks of treatment with low-doses of orally administered human interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha). Volunteer subjects discontinued all analgesic and sedative hypnotic medications for 2 weeks prior to the baseline phlebotomy. Laboratory measures included a complete blood count; a phenotypic analysis of PBML by flow cytometry; and in vitro natural killer (NK) cell activity.

Serotonin levels, pain threshold, and fibromyalgia symptoms in the general population.

Objective: To investigate the association of serum serotonin with fibromyalgia (FM), and to study the relationship of serotonin to clinical variables associated with FM.

Methods: Serum samples (n = 292) were obtained on subjects without pain, with regional pain, and with widespread pain during a population survey. The tender point examination was made according to American College of Rheumatology examination criteria by an examiner blind to the subjects' complaints.

Elevated cerebrospinal fluid levels of substance P in patients with the fibromyalgia syndrome.

Objective: To measure, and seek clinical correlates with, levels of substance P (SP) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) patients.

Methods: CSF from 32 FMS patients and 30 normal control subjects was tested for SP by radioimmunoassay. Clinical measures included tender point examination and standardized questionnaires.

Platelet 3H-imipramine uptake receptor density and serum serotonin levels in patients with fibromyalgia/fibrositis syndrome.

The density of serotonin reuptake receptors on peripheral platelets from 22 patients with primary fibromyalgia syndrome (FS) and the serum serotonin concentrations in 9 patients with FS were compared with those of matched healthy controls. The mean serum serotonin concentration was lower (p = 0.01) in FS than in controls, while the binding of 3H-imipramine was higher (p = 0.

Serum amino acids in fibrositis/fibromyalgia syndrome.

Free plasma tryptophan levels in patients with fibrositis syndrome were measured by Moldofsky and Warsh with the view that the pathogenesis of fibrositis syndrome might involve a functional deficiency of serotonin. The hypothesis was supported by the finding of an inverse relationship between tryptophan concentration and the severity of musculoskeletal pain. Our study examined the total serum amino acid pool in fibrositis syndrome.

Is there a metabolic basis for the fibrositis syndrome?

Patients with the fibrositis syndrome experience moderately severe musculoskeletal discomfort, mood changes associated with nonrestorative sleep, and tenderness to palpation at specific body sites. There is no characteristic abnormal laboratory finding in these patients to help identify the population. A report by Moldofsky and Warsh (Pain 1978; 5: 65-71) of low serum levels of free tryptophan in patients with severe fibrositis syndrome is intriguing but remains unexplained.