Expression profile of immune response genes in patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

BACKGROUND: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) emerged in later February 2003, as a new epidemic form of life-threatening infection caused by a novel coronavirus. However, the immune-pathogenesis of SARS is poorly understood. To understand the host response to this pathogen, we investigated the gene expression profiles of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) derived from SARS patients, and compared with healthy controls. RESULTS: The number of differentially expressed genes was found to be 186 under stringent filtering criteria of microarray data analysis. Several genes were highly up-regulated in patients with SARS, such as, the genes coding for Lactoferrin, S100A9 and Lipocalin 2. The real-time PCR method verified the results of the gene array analysis and showed that those genes that were up-regulated as determined by microarray analysis were also found to be comparatively up-regulated by real-time PCR analysis. CONCLUSIONS: This differential gene expression profiling of PBMCs from patients with SARS strongly suggests that the response of SARS affected patients seems to be mainly an innate inflammatory response, rather than a specific immune response against a viral infection, as we observed a complete lack of cytokine genes usually triggered during a viral infection. Our study shows for the first time how the immune system responds to the SARS infection, and opens new possibilities for designing new diagnostics and treatments for this new life-threatening disease

Expression profile of immune response genes in patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-0

<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Expression profile of immune response genes in patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome"</p><p>BMC Immunology 2005;6():2-2.</p><p>Published online 18 Jan 2005</p><p>PMCID:PMC546205.</p><p>Copyright © 2005 Reghunathan et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.</p>erent classes of gene expression profiles. Each row represents a separate gene and each column a separate SARS patient. 248 genes have been selected for this analysis which is described in methods. The expression index for each gene (rows) in each sample (column) is indicated by a color code. The color scale ranges from saturated green for log ratios -3.0 and above to saturated red for log ratios 3.0 and above. Red indicates increased gene expression levels, whereas green indicates decreased levels compared with normal samples. . Pie chart showing the percentage distribution of the differentially expressed genes from the PBMCs of 10 SARS patients

Expression profile of immune response genes in patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-1

<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Expression profile of immune response genes in patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome"</p><p>BMC Immunology 2005;6():2-2.</p><p>Published online 18 Jan 2005</p><p>PMCID:PMC546205.</p><p>Copyright © 2005 Reghunathan et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.</p> and from 5 influenza virus infected patients (Influenza). Total RNA was extracted from all the samples and Light-Cycler Real-Time PCR was performed. The concentrations of these genes mRNA were calculated using respective standard curves. Lactoferrin expression (LTF); Lipocalin expression (Lipocalin); S100P expression (S100P); FCGR3A expression (FCGR3A); TLR2 expression (TLR2); Interferon Alpha expression (IFNa); Interferon Beta expression (IFNb); Interleukin 12-p40 expression (IL-12); Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha expression (TNFa); and GAPDH expression (GAPDH). Results are expressed as average ± SD of gene expression for each group (control n = 4; SARS n = 10; and influenza n = 5)

Outcome of advanced lung cancer with central airway obstruction versus without central airway obstruction

Patients with central airway obstruction (CAO) from advanced lung cancer present with significant morbidity and are assumed to have lower survival. Hence, they are offered only palliative support. We asked if patients who have advanced lung cancer with CAO (recanalised and treated) will behave similarly to those with advanced lung cancer without CAO. This study was a retrospective review of the medical records of the patients managed for advanced lung cancer during 2010 and 2015 at our institution. 85 patients were studied. Median survival and 1-, 2- and 5-year survival were 5.8 months, 30.3%, 11.7% and 2.3% versus 9.3 months, 35.7%, 9.6% and 4.7%, respectively, in the CAO and no CAO groups (p=0.30). More patients presented with respiratory failure (15 (35%) versus none; p=0.0001) and required assisted mechanical ventilation (10 (23.3%) versus none; p=0.001) in the CAO group compared with the no CAO group. Fewer patients received chemotherapy in the CAO group (11 (25.5%)) compared with the no CAO group (23 (54.7%); p=0.008). There was no difference in survival among patients with advanced lung cancer whether they presented with CAO or without CAO. Survival was similar to those without CAO in patients with recanalised CAO despite greater morbidity and lesser use of chemotherapy, strongly advocating bronchoscopic recanalisation of CAO. These findings dispel the nihilism associated with such cases

Subconjunctival haemorrhage from bronchoscopy: A case report

Flexible bronchoscopy has been available for almost five decades. It has evolved as one of the most commonly used invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedure in pulmonology, and its scope of applications is progressively expanding with the addition of new adjunct technologies such as endobronchial ultrasound, bronchial Thermoplasty, and navigational bronchoscopy. It is a safe procedure with complications ranging from fever, infiltrates, hypoxemia, bleeding, pneumothoraces and death, with most significant complications being bleeding and pneumothorax. We report a case of subconjuctival haemorrhage as an immediate complication of bronchoscopy. To our knowledge this is the first report documenting this rare complication