Background: General population-based investigations have revealed that red blood cell distribution width (RDW) is associated with inflammatory indexes such as erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP). Chronic inflammation is one of the major components of many autoimmune diseases and RDW may reflect the severity of these autoimmune diseases as well. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the correlation between RDW and disease activity of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
Methods: The medical records of 131 SLE patients were retrospectively analyzed. Correlations between RDW and disease activity or other inflammatory indexes were analyzed. The effect of glucocorticoid treatment for three months on RDW was estimated in 3 newly diagnosed SLE cases.
Results: Increased RDW was observed in SLE patients. RDW was positively correlated with serum IgM, CRP, ESR, and SLE Disease Activity Index 2000 (SLEDAI-2K). Glucocorticoid treatment decreased both SLEDAI-2K and RDW.
Conclusion: RDW may be a useful index to estimate the disease activity of SLE.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cca.2013.08.007 | DOI Listing |
Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol
January 2025
Comenius University Bratislava, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Cholinesterase (ChE) inhibitors are under consideration to be used in the treatment of cardiovascular pathologies. A prerequisite to advancing ChE inhibitors into the clinic is their thorough characterization in the heart. The aim here was to provide a detailed analysis of cardiac ChE to understand their molecular composition, localization, and physiological functions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAIDS Patient Care STDS
January 2025
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, Oakland, California, USA.
Community health workers (CHWs) play a significant role in supporting health services delivery in communities with few trained health care providers. There has been limited research on ways to optimize the role of CHWs in HIV prevention service delivery. This study explored CHWs' experiences with offering HIV prevention services [HIV testing and HIV pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP and PEP)] during three pilot studies in rural communities in Kenya and Uganda, which aimed to increase biomedical HIV prevention coverage via a structured patient-centered HIV prevention delivery model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Cancer Res
January 2025
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, United States.
Purpose: Renal medullary carcinoma (RMC) is a highly aggressive malignancy defined by the loss of the SMARCB1 tumor suppressor. It mainly affects young individuals of African descent with sickle cell trait, and it is resistant to conventional therapies used for other renal cell carcinomas. This study aimed to identify potential biomarkers for early detection and disease monitoring of RMC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInvest Ophthalmol Vis Sci
January 2025
Schepens Eye Research Institute, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Department of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Purpose: To investigate the presence of uridine-5'-triphosphate (UTP)-activated P2Y1-like nucleotide receptors (P2Y2R, P2Y4R, and P2Y6R) in conjunctival goblet cells (CGCs) and determine if they increase intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) and induce mucin secretion.
Methods: Adult, male rat conjunctiva was used for culture of CGCs. To investigate the expression of P2YRs, mRNA was extracted from CGCs and used for reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) with commercially obtained primers specific to P2Y2R, P2Y4R, and P2Y6R.
Background: Molnupiravir (MOV) is an orally bioavailable ribonucleoside with antiviral activity against all tested SARS-CoV-2 variants. We describe the demographic, clinical, and treatment characteristics of non-hospitalized Danish patients treated with MOV and their clinical outcomes following MOV initiation.
Method: Among all adults (>18 years) who received MOV between 16 December 2021 and 30 April 2022 in an outpatient setting in Denmark, we summarized their demographic and clinical characteristics at baseline and post-MOV outcomes using descriptive statistics.
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