BACKGROUND The value of serum and cerebrospinaL fluid (CSF) procalcitonin for differentiating between acute bacterial and viral meningitis was assessed and compared to other parameters which are usually used in clinical practice. PATIENTS 45 adult patients (20 with bacterial and 25 with tick-borne encephalitis, TBE) were included in this prospective study. RESULTS The median serum procalcit...

Enriched populations of either normal human promyelocytes and myelocytes or blast cells were obtained by fluorescence-activated cell sorting with the monoclonal antibody WEM-G11. These populations were used to study the effect of pulse stimulation by purified recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) or cross-reacting purified murine granulocyte colony-stimulat...

We investigated whether recombinant human granulocyte-monocyte-colony-stimulating factor (rhGM-CSF) increased the immunogenicity of VACCIMEL, a vaccine consisting of 3 irradiated allogeneic melanoma cell lines. A phase I clinical trial was performed on 20 melanoma patients in stages IIB (n=2), III (n=10), and IV (n=8), who were disease free after surgery (n=16) or had minimal disease (n=4). Coh...

BACKGROUND The phenomenon of epidural "top-up" (increased spread of local anesthetic due to epidural fluid injection) is explained partly by an epidural volume effect. This study was designed to investigate the change in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volume and velocity waveform induced by epidural saline injection. METHODS (1) Lumbar epidural catheters were placed in 28 patients. Magnetic resona...

conclusions the aspiration of 1 - 3 ml of csf before an injection of levobupivacaine did not seem to affect the spread and duration of the sensory block or postpuncture complications in children following sa. results there were no between-group differences in the time to regression of the block below t10 or in the cephalic spread of the sensory block: 94 (27) minutes and t4.4 (sd 2.2) in the cs...

The activity of four recombinant human cytokines on porcine neutrophils was evaluated. Porcine neutrophils were treated with varying doses of recombinant human tumour necrosis factor-alpha (rHu-TNF), interferon-gamma (rHu-IFN), interleukin-8 (rHu-lL-8), or granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (rHu-GM-CSF). The function of treated neutrophils was compared with that of non-treated con...

Post-mortem studies document alterations in the central noradrenergic system in suicide. However, studies of non-fatal suicide attempts have, thus far, found no consistent relationship to the noradrenaline metabolite 3-methoxy-4-hydroxphenylglycol (MHPG) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). We therefore conducted a prospective study of CSF MHPG and suicidal acts in major depression and bipolar depress...

The activity of recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) in enhancing CD34(+) cell mobilization elicited by chemotherapy plus recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (rhG-CSF) was evaluated in 16 hard-to-mobilize patients, that is, those achieving a peak of circulating CD34+ cells 10/microL or less, or a collection of CD34(+) cells equal to or less than 2 x 10(6)/kg. Patients who...

Efavirenz (EFZ) has been associated with neuropsychiatric side effects. Recently, the 8-hydroxy-EFZ (8OH-EFZ) metabolite has been shown to be a potent neurotoxin in vitro, inducing neuronal damage at concentrations of 3.3 ng/ml. EFZ induced similar neuronal damage at concentrations of 31.6 ng/ml. We investigated the effect of genotype and blood-brain barrier integrity on EFZ metabolite concentr...