Normal precursor B cells or hematogones share morphologic and immunophenotypic similarities with lymphoblasts of precursor B-lymphoblastic leukemia. The numbers are often increased and difficult to distinguish in many patients following chemotherapy for precursor B-lymphoblastic leukemia. The purpose of this study was to establish a unique method for differentiating hematogones from lymphoblast...

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has a pivotal role as a remote imaging method. Obtained by means of coherent illumination, SAR images are contaminated with speckle noise. The statistical modelling of such contamination is well described according the multiplicative model and its implied G distribution. The understanding of SAR imagery and scene element identification is an important objective in...

OBJECTIVE The presence of antinuclear antibodies (ANA), directed against intracellular antigens, is a distinctive feature of systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs). The standard test for antinuclear antibody screening is the indirect immunofluorescence (IIF). Anti-dense fine speckled 70 (anti-DFS70) antibodies were initially identified as an ANA IIF pattern from a patient with interstit...

Objective: Serum from SSc patients was analyzed centrally to determine ANA patterns and extractable nuclear antigens (ENAs) between lcSSc and dcSSc and associations with organ involvement. Methods: 1145 SSc patients had ANA and ENA analyzed by indirect immunofluorescence on HEp-2 substrate at a screening serum dilution of 1/160. Most ENA antibodies [Sm. U1-RNP, Ro52, SS-A/Ro60, topoisomeraseI (...

We describe the first case of the coexistence of the hereditary connective tissue disorder multiple exostoses (HME) and an acquired connective tissue disorder manifest by the overlap of dermatomyositis (DM), scleroderma (PSS), high titre speckled pattern antinuclear antibodies, and increased antibodies to double stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Furthermore this patient developed chondrosar...

Anticentromere antibodies (ACA) Discrete speckled pattern on Hep-2 cells in interphase (8, 9). Anti-DNA topoisomerase I At a serum dilution of 1:40 by the Outcherlony double immunodiffusion method using as the antigen source a freshly prepared saline extract of lyophilized rabbit thymus acetone powder at a concentration of 20-40 mg protein/ml and a reference serum for comparison. Other procedur...

This paper presents a general result for the simulation of correlated heterogeneous targets, which are present in images corrupted by speckle noise. This technique is based on the use of a correlation mask and Gaussian random variables, in order to obtain spatially dependent Gamma deviates. These Gamma random variables, in turn, allow the obtainment of correlated K deviates with specified corre...

Purpose Indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) in Hep-2 cells is the standard screening test for antinuclear antibodies (ANA). Advances in this methodology have brought up a considerable increase in sensitivity and consequently a decrease in its specificity. This has resulted in an increasing number of positive tests in apparently healthy subjects. In particular, autoantibodies associated with the d...