SUMMY A 71-year-old man with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation who had a previous anterior myocardial infarction exhibited granulocytopenia 8 days following the administration of oral sustained-release procainamide (750mg/day). The plasma concentrations of procainamide and N-acetyl procainamide were at subtherapeutic levels. Discontinuation of procainamide led to complete recovery. A bone marrow a...

Brachio-cervical inflammatory myopathy (BCIM) is a unique clinicopathologic entity characterized by neck and upper extremity weakness with relative sparing of lower extremities and commonly associated with connective tissue diseases or myasthenia gravis and serum autoantibodies (e.g., antinuclear antibody [ANA], anti–double stranded DNA [dsDNA], and anti–acetylcholine receptor). Muscle patholog...

Discoid Lupus Erythematosus (DLE) is an autoimmune disorder that usually occurs on sun exposed areas of head and neck. Infrequently it could be presented by palpebral involvement and rarely unilateral upper eye lid edema and erythema have been reported as the sole manifestation of DLE. We describe a 38-year-old woman with chronic left upper eye lid edema and erythema from one year ago which was...

An 11-year-old boy presented in February 2008 with a facial butterfly rash that persisted for at least one month. Lupus erythematosus was repeatedly suspected and the boy was referred for further examinations. A detailed medical history did not reveal any arthralgia, fever, malaise, exanthema, intense exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light in the period one to three weeks before onset of the rash. ...

In the literature, there are case reports suggesting that Borrelia burgdorferi infection may induce autoimmune diseases dependent on antinuclear antibodies (ANA). The present study was undertaken in order to verify this possibility in a prospective manner. The study group comprised 78 consecutive patients (51 women and 27 men, median age 41.5 years) referred to our Department for the serologic ...

Sarcoidosis is a systemic, chronic disease of unknown etiology that is characterized by non-caseating granulomas in any tissue. Impairment of cellular immunity is known to play a major role in this disease. Humoral abnormalities such as the occasional presence of anti double-stranded DNA (antids DNA), antinuclear antibody (ANA) and rheumatoid factor (RF) have also been observed in patients with...

BACKGROUND Autoantibodies are of growing interest in cancer research as potential biomarkers; yet, the determinants of autoimmunity are not well understood. Antinuclear antibodies (ANA) are common in the general population and are more prevalent in women and older adults. Here, we examined the relationship of ANA with reproductive and hormonal factors in a representative sample of U.S. women. ...

Human B cells that coexpress surrogate and conventional light chains (V-preB+L+) show an unusual heavy and light chain antibody repertoire that display evidence of receptor editing. However, it is unclear whether V-preB+L+ B cells have been silenced by receptor editing or still express autoreactive antibodies. Here we report that 68% of the antibodies expressed by V-preB+L+ B cells are autoreac...

Results During the study period, 114 children were included. Mean age at diagnosis was 4 years and 4 months (range, 4 months to 15.5 years). Familial history of autoimmunity was found in 27% of the patients. Glycosylated ferritin was low (≤20%) for 79% of patients. Twelve percent of patients had macrophage activation syndrome, 2 patients anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) associated ...

Circulating antinuclear antibody and rheumatoid factor have been measured in 109 coal miners with pneumoconiosis whose chest radiograph showed a range of abnormalities varying from simple pneumoconiosis of mild degree to advanced progressive massive fibrosis.At a screening dilution of 1/10 the overall incidence of antinuclear antibody was 17%. In almost half of the positive cases the titre was ...