There has been a considerable improvement in the survival of patients with systemic vasculitis since the introduction of immunosuppressive therapy and improved diagnostic tools to allow earlier diagnosis. We review the published literature on current risk of mortality in patients with small vessel antineutrophil cytoplasm antibody- (ANCA) associated vasculitis including Wegener's granulomatosis...

The "suboptimal health" is a term used to describe a group of conditions that affect many people around the globe but cannot be diagnosed with any diseases of clinical standards. Due to the complexity in conditions and manifestations, there have been controversies about how to define and categorize the suboptimal health. In this paper, we thoroughly analyzed the currently available suboptimal h...

Hypersensitivity to anticonvulsant drugs have been reported many times. But anticonvulsant hypersensitivity syndrome (AHS) is a potentially fatal drug reaction with cutaneous and systemic reaction to the arene oxide-producing anticonvulsants, phenytoin, carbamazepine, and Phenobarbital sodium. The hall-mark features of this syndrome are: Fever, rash and lymphadenopathy. The epoxide hydrolase en...

INTRODUCTION The purpose of the present study was to systematically review the effect of cyclophosphamide treatment on pulmonary function in patients with systemic sclerosis and interstitial lung disease. METHODS The primary outcomes were the mean change in forced vital capacity and in diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide after 12 months of therapy in patients treated with cyclophosphamide....

Numerous systemic diseases share immunopathogenic mechanisms. This article reviews the proposed etiologies and immunopathogenic mechanisms of a group of diseases which share pulmonary and renal abnormalities. Specifically, we discuss the following diseases: Good-pasture's syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, progressive systemic sclerosis, Wegener's granulomatosis, lymphomatoid granulomatosi...

metabolic syndrome (ms) is a condition, which constitutes a group of risk factors that occur together and increase the risk for coronary artery disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes mellitus. this disorder is found prevalent in the industrialized societies of the world in epidemic proportions. periodontitis is an oral disease of microbial origin characterized by loss of attachment apparatus of to...

Retinoids are synthetic and natural analogues of vitamin A that have various effects on cellular differentiation, cellular proliferation, immune system, and embryonic development. The present study reviews the history of systemic retinoids in medicine, the structure of syn