A 41 year old male with psoriatic arthritis developed progressive dyspnoea and airflow obstruction following 4 months of intramuscular gold therapy. Open lung biopsy revealed bronchiolitis obliterans of the constrictive type. This case suggests a possible aetiological role for gold in the pathogenesis of constrictive bronchiolitis obliterans, or alternatively an association between psoriatic ar...

The design of liposome-nanoparticle hybrids offers a rich toolbox for the fabrication of multifunctional modalities. A self-assembled liposome-gold nanorod hybrid vesicular system that consists of lipid-bilayer-associated gold nanorods designed to allow deep tissue detection, therapy, and monitoring in living animals using multispectral optoacoustic tomography has been fabricated and characteri...

The application of functionalized nanocarriers on photothermal therapy for cancer ablation has wide interest. The success of this application depends on the therapeutic efficiency and biocompatibility of the system, but also on the stability and biorecognition of the conjugated protein. This study aims at investigating the hypothesis that EGF functionalized polymer-coated gold nanoparticles pro...

Gold nanoprobes have become attractive diagnostic and therapeutic agents in medicine and life sciences research owing to their reproducible synthesis with atomic level precision, unique physical and chemical properties, versatility of their morphologies, flexibility in functionalization, ease of targeting, efficiency in drug delivery and opportunities for multimodal therapy. This review highlig...

mediciNe & HealtH/RHode iSlaNd partICleS Can be engIneered to nanometer-size (nm) which are only 1/1,000 the width of a single human hair. Nanoparticles made of gold display strong optical absorption. A special type of gold nanoparticle called hollow gold nanoparticle has a core-shell nanostructure with unique characteristics, including small particle size (~40 nm in diameter), which is an idea...

We report the results of bronchoalveolar lavage in a patient with gold salt-induced interstitial pneumonitis. The presence of elevated numbers of lymphocytes in the lavage specimen supports a hypersensitivity-related pathogenesis of this disease. Such findings may help distinguish pulmonary complications of gold therapy from interstitial disease due to rheumatoid arthritis.

A 35-year-old female with rheumatoid arthritis developed an ischaemic colitis and circulating immune complexes following her fourth injection of sodium aurothiomalate. The immune-complex titres fell rapidly after resolution of the colitis, and a possible association of these immune complexes and the bowel pathology is suggested.

In a prospective study of 45 patients with rheumatoid arthritis mucocutaneous symptoms and signs were evaluated before and during treatment with intramuscular sodium aurothiomalate (Myocrisin). The work, performed in close collaboration between dermatology and rheumatology departments, showed that there was no significant increase in mucocutaneous side effects in patients with pre-existing muco...

Gold nanostars are among the most efficient plasmonic nanomaterials for optical sensing with surface enhanced Raman scattering. In recent years, gold have increased relevance in physics, analytical chemistry, environmental science, biology and medicine, particular therapy. These colloids can sustain ultrastrong electromagnetic fields which allow their use as single particles enhancers; colloida...

A trial of sodium aurothiomalate as an antiproteinase drug in the treatment of murine muscular dystrophy is reported. A blind controlled comparison of high (25 microgram/10 g body weight) and low dose gold (5 microgram/10 g body weight) with saline-injected control animals was made, all injections being given three times weekly. The body weights and functional ability of the mice were assessed ...