Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to S M Zimmet.
A 62-year-old woman died of a combination of pneumonia, empyema, emphysema, and severe heart disease. The pneumonia was due to Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a rarely if ever reported causative agent in pulmonary infection. Autopsy ruled out other sites from which the organism could have originated.
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Pleural involvement has generally been considered an unusual aspect of sarcoidosis. In this paper, five previously unreported cases of sarcoidosis involving the pleura were discussed. Pleural sarcoidosis may be manifested by the presence of a pleural effusion, and the diagnosis is based on the exclusion of all other possible causes and the demonstration of noncaseating granulomas in the pleura. When the pleura is involved without effusion, it may only be recognized if noncaseating granulomas involving the pleura are looked for specifically. Including the five cases form this study, there have been 73 cases of pleural sarcoidosis reported, but only 37 have been verified by histologic evidence. When strict diagnostic criteria are used, clinical involvement of the pleura in sarsoidosis remains an unusual entity, but it may be that histologic involvement of the pleura is more common than generally appreciated.
Alveolar macrophages were obtained from human volunteers, smokers and nonsmokers, by bronchial lavage through a fiberoptic bronchoscope. Cells were incubated in a chemically defined medium containing [(14)C]sucrose (0.36 mM) and varying concentrations of rabbit serum. Pinocytosis was assessed by the cellular uptake of isotope over 30, 75, and 120-min periods. Pinocytic activity of smokers' cells was dependent on serum concentration but always less than the activity of nonsmokers' cells. The degree of pinocytosis by nonsmokers' cells was independent of serum concentration. It is concluded that the decreased level of pinocytic activity in smokers' alveolar macrophages as indicated by the uptake of sucrose in the presence of rabbit serum may represent a form of reticuloendothelial blockade.
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