Clinical images: Romanus spondylitis.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to P Mercié.
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OBJECTIVE: To study hepatic cytolysis in patients treated by highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) with protease inhibitor or with two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs). METHODS: We selected patients of the Aquitaine Cohort who initiated HAART or two NRTIs before 1 January 1998, had alanine amino-transferase (ALT) < or = 200 IU/I at baseline and at least one follow-up measure. Cox model was used to study the association between occurrence of severe hepatic cytolysis (ALT>200 IU/l) and age, gender, HIV transmission group, baseline CD4 and CD8 cell count, history of hepatic cytolysis, antiretroviral drug, baseline liver enzymes (WHO classification level 0: < or = 50 IU/l, level 1: 51 to 100, level 2: 101 to 200), hepatitis B and C co-infection. RESULTS: Sixty-four of 748 (8.5%) patients treated with HAART and 71 of 1249 (5.7%) treated with two NRTIs developed cytolysis. The probability of occurrence was 7.9% after 1 year [95% confidence interval (CI), 5.9-10.4] for patients treated with HAART and 4.8% (95% CI, 3.6-6.4) for patients treated with two NRTIs (log-rank test, P = 0.01). The median time to occurrence was 164 days for HAART-treated patients and 252 days for those treated with two NRTIs. In multivariate analysis, the history of cytolysis [hazard ratio (HR) = 2.3; 95% CI, 1.2-4.4], baseline value of ALT (HR = 2.4; 95% CI, 1.2-4.8 and HR = 3.3; 95% CI, 1.4-7.4 for levels 1 and 2, respectively), hepatitis B (HR = 3.0; 95% CI, 1.4-6.2) and C co-infections (HR = 3.2; 95% CI, 1.7-6.2) remained significantly associated with the occurrence of severe hepatic cytolysis among HAART-treated patients. History of cytolysis, hepatitis B and C were associated with cytolysis in patients treated with two NRTIs (HR = 14.8, 2.6 and 2.7, respectively). CONCLUSION: Hepatic cytolysis is more frequent among patients treated with HAART than with two NRTIs. Hepatitis B and C are the major risk factors after initiation of HAART or treatment with NRTIs. Co-infections with hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus may modify the management of HIV-infected patients treated by HAART.
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INTRODUCTION: The acrodystrophic neuropathy described by Bureau and Barrière in the 1950s is a rare trophic complication of chronic, analgesic neuropathy due to alcohol abuse, which is at the origin of perforating ulcers of the foot, vasomotor disorders with dysautonomia, and leads to mutilating arthropathy of the lower limb. This neuroacropathy, also termed vagabonds' or vagrants' disease, usually occurs in subjects with a debilitated condition, chronic alcoholism, and unfavourable socioeconomic conditions. EXEGESIS: We report four cases of Bureau-Barrière disease which occurred in male subjects who were on average 55 years of age. The clinical presentation was close to that reported in the literature. Indeed, all four patients were alcoholic, nondiabetic and lived under conditions of precarious hygiene. Therapeutic management of the patients was difficult due to bad compliance with the treatment and persistence of alcohol abuse. Immobilization of the foot is considered to be the primary treatment. Local care including baths and bandages with hydrocolloids must be continued during several months, and associated with antibiotic therapy, administered by infusion when necessary. The outcome is often chronic, with poor prognosis. Given the limited therapeutic possibilities, acrodystrophic neuropathy is an invalidating disease with high morbidity. CONCLUSION: Bureau-Barrière disease is a rare, serious invalidating disease. The clinical symptomatology is usually based on the diagnostic triad: analgesia of the foot, perforating ulcers of the foot, and deforming and mutilating arthropathy of the lower limb. Treatment is often hampered due to poor compliance with local care and persistence of alcohol abuse.
INTRODUCTION: Parotidean and ovarian lymphoma often indicate the existence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, involving 1-5% and 0.2% of the cases, respectively. EXEGENESIS: The authors report the case of a 70-year-old woman who presented B cell lymphoma of the parotid gland revealed by a rapid increase in the parotid size. CT scan showed the existence of a tumor located in the left ovary, later confirmed by biopsy. The proposed diagnosis was diffuse B cell type lymphoma with double glandular localization. Adenopathy and bone marrow involvement were both lacking. CONCLUSION: Lymphoma with glandular localizations always require diagnosis confirmation via histological examination and immunophenotyping, and must be considered as the local sign of a general disease.
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We describe a 58-year old patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who developed systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with severe joint involvement. Dilated myocardiopathy precluded the use of high corticoid doses and a 15 days of prednisone (15mg/d) had no effect on the polyarthritis. Therefore, fludarabine (25mg/m2) was administered for 5 d. One month after the first cycle, fever, muscle stiffness and polyarthritis resolved. A total of 6 cycles were administered. The evolution was complicated by herpes zoster infection and left pneumococcal pneumonia. At this time of writing (July 1999), the patient is symptom free but is profoundly lymphopenic.
Neuropsychiatric forms of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) vary, most commonly consisting of seizures, psychiatric disturbances, or focal central nervous deficits. This is a new case of neuromyelitis optica or Devic's syndrome during the course of SLE. Few reports of this association exist in the literature. Our objective is to report this unique case of Devic's neuromyelitis optica during pregnancy in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus. A 28-year-old woman had been diagnosed as having SLE with cutaneous and articular involvement in 1987 when she was 17 years old. She was treated with a synthetic antimalarial agent associated with corticosteroids. In 1994, during the fourth month of pregnancy, she had signs of transverse myelitis with a sensory level at T6 associated with an optic neuropathy suggesting a Devic's syndrome. The patient was managed by plasmapheresis sessions and intravenous corticosteroids. Transverse myelitis recurred postpartum and three years later at the same thoracic level. Management by bolus administration of a steroid and cyclophosphamide resulted in remission again. There have only been around a dozen reports in the literature of patients who had both Devic's neuromyelitis optica and SLE. Magnetic resonance imaging is contributive to diagnosis and therapeutic follow-up, showing spinal cord lesions with increased intensity on T2-weighted sequences. Although the clinical course of the present patient has been favourable so far, the prognosis of this neurologic disease is generally considered to be poor with elevated mortality.
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INTRODUCTION: The transcription factor NF-kappa B is a key regulator of genes involved in responses to infection, inflammation and stress. It was first identified as a protein with ADN-binding activity specific for the 10-base-pair kappa B site in the immunoglobulin k light-chain enhancer of B lymphocytes. CURRENT KNOWLEDGE AND KEY POINTS: NF-kappa B is normally present in the cell cytoplasm bound to an inhibitory I kappa B protein. The nuclear localization signal (NLS) in NF-kappa B is a short amino acid signal sequence involved in nuclear transport. Inducers of NF-kappa activation trigger dissociation and degradation of I kappa B from the NF-kappa B complex. This allows NF-kappa B to translocate to the nucleus and bind to kappa B DNA sites. Repression of NF-kappa B dependent gene expression is one of the major elements of immunosuppression by glucocorticoids. FUTURES PROSPECTS AND PROJECTS: Endothelial cells at sites of inflammatory responses express a variety of genes that are under the control of nuclear factor NF-kappa B. This transcriptional factor with its inhibitors may be linked in an autoregulatory system that can be activated by multiple signals relevant to vascular pathophysiology. NF-kappa B is therefore an obvious target for new types of anti-inflammatory treatment.
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