OBJECTIVE To ascertain whether patients with cardiac failure and reduced body weight ("cardiac cachexia") have increased circulating concentrations of tumour necrosis factor (cachectin). DESIGN Patients with cardiac failure were prospectively identified as "cachectic" (body fat less than 27% in men and less than 29% in women measured by skinfold thickness callipers) or "non-cachectic". Tumour...

Plasma tumour necrosis factor alpha (alpha) concentration is increased in acute Gram negative sepsis, but the effect of chronic infection on plasma concentrations is unknown. A study was carried out in patients with cystic fibrosis to determine the effect of chronic lung infection with Pseudomonas aeruginosa on the plasma concentration of tumour necrosis factor and two other indicators of the i...

OBJECTIVE To explore the significance of the tumour necrosis factor-α/interleukin-10 ratio and the effect of continuous positive airway pressure in patients with different degrees of obstructive sleep apnoea hypopnoea syndrome severity. METHOD This study comprised 135 patients with obstructive sleep apnoea hypopnoea syndrome and 94 control subjects. RESULTS Tumour necrosis factor-α and tumo...

Many biological functions are regulated through interactions of extracellular molecules with their cognate cell surface receptors. The transduction of these signals by their receptors at the plasma membrane to the intracellular machinery results in such cellular activities as gene activation, protein phosphorylation, cell proliferation, and cell destruction. Though the kinetics of these activit...

AIMS Evidence suggests that the presence of tumour necrosis is an adverse prognostic factor in renal cell carcinoma (RCC). However, it has also been shown that tumour regression, a microscopic feature associated with necrosis, may be a favourable short term prognostic factor in RCC. METHODS Pathology reports of 253 RCCs from 1992 to 2001 were reviewed, and identified 37 tumours with substanti...