Biomedical subjects

L Alfred

Publications and source records attributed to L Alfred.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1990

Estimating the cost of the most prevalent diseases of the retired beneficiaries of health insurance organizations in Alexandria.

A retrospective study was carried out in Alexandria Health Insurance Organization Polyclinics and pharmacies to determine the prevalence of diseases among the retired beneficiaries and their utilization of health insurance services, and to estimate the annual expenses by disease with comparison of the retired contributions and expenses. Arthritis (49.3%) and respiratory tract diseases (43.4%) were the for most prevalent disease groups. Ischaemic heart diseases ranked the first in term of total expenses. The outpatient medicaments constituted the largest burden of expenses and the expenditures were six to ten folds that of the retired contributions.

Aged↗

PubMed1987

Effect of methylcholanthrene on human natural killer cell cytotoxicity and lymphokine production in vitro.

We have developed a simple culture assay system for measuring the in vitro effects of a chemical carcinogen, 3-methylcholanthrene (MCA), on certain activities of human peripheral blood lymphocytes: blastogenesis, cell-mediated cytotoxicity by natural killer cells, interleukin-2 production, lymphotoxin release and percent T-cell subpopulations. After 72 h of treatment with different doses of MCA, blastogenesis was suppressed 23-87% and cell-mediated cytotoxicity was inhibited 45-90%. Interleukin-2 and lymphotoxin production were decreased by 64% and 38%, respectively. On the other hand, MCA treatment at the same doses caused no significant change in the percent of T-cell subsets. We conclude that MCA exerts an inhibitory effect on T-cell functional activity such as interleukin-2 and lymphotoxin production which correlate with a suppression of blastogenesis and natural killer cell activity. This in vitro assay system could be important for future studies in explaining specific inhibitory effects of chemical carcinogens on lymphoid cell function relative to tumorigenesis.

Cytotoxicity, Immunologic↗

PubMed1986

T cell profiles in vitiligo.

The purpose of our investigation was to quantitatively assess T cell profiles in vitiligo and to correlate any aberrations in these findings with the spectrum of clinical disease. Twenty randomly selected vitiligo patients and sixteen healthy matched control subjects were studied. The immunofluorescence and complement-mediated cytotoxicity assays were used to determine the percentages of total T (OKT3), helper (OKT4), and suppressor (OKT8) cells in the peripheral blood of patients and controls. Both assays gave comparable results. Patients with vitiligo had a statistically significant decrease in helper cells and helper/suppressor ratios in comparison with control subjects (p less than 0.01). In addition, there was a statistically significant decrease in helper cells among patients with a disease duration of less than 1 year (p less than 0.01) and in patients who produced serum autoantibodies (p less than 0.05). These findings tend to suggest that aberrations in cell-mediated immunity may be operative in the pathogenesis of vitiligo.

Adolescent↗