UNLABELLED Aim of the study was to reveal potential prognostic factors in Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) patients by means of assessment of the influence of mast cells on clinical characteristics of the disease. PATIENTS AND METHODS Paraffin-fixed lymph node biopsies taken from the group of 72 patients treated for Hodgkin's lymphoma in the Department of Internal Medicine and Oncological Chemotherapy...

Since serum tryptase levels are elevated in some patients with myeloproliferative disorders, we examined their utility in identifying a subset of patients with hypereosinophilic syndrome (HES) and an underlying myeloproliferative disorder. Elevated serum tryptase levels (> 11.5 ng/mL) were present in 9 of 15 patients with HES and were associated with other markers of myeloproliferation, includi...

INTRODUCTION The mechanism of eosinophilic colitis remains unclear, and no case has been reported in which the number of mast cells was examined. CASE REPORT A 35-year-old man presented to our hospital with chief complaints of chills and consistent watery diarrhea after eating raw fresh-water fish. In blood examination, peripheral blood eosinophilia was found. Histological examination from bi...

Mast cell leukemia (MCL) is a very rare form of systemic mastocytosis (SM) with a short median survival of 6 months. We describe a case of a 65-year-old woman with aleukaemic variant of MCL with a very high serum total tryptase level of 2255 μg/L at diagnosis, which occurred following an episode of hypotensive shock. She fulfilled the diagnostic criteria of SM, with a bone marrow smear infiltra...

Mast cells are abundant and are widely distributed in airway tissues. They release their secretory products into microenvironments as diverse as epithelium, smooth muscle, and glands. The major secretory granule proteins of mast cells are proteases that are released outside of the cell with heparin, histamine, and other preformed mediators. In the past few years, investigations in a number of l...

In patients with mastocytosis, gastrointestinal symptoms are a frequent phenomenon. However, there are only limited data about the quantity and distribution pattern of mast cells in the gastrointestinal mucosa. We stained gastroduodenal biopsy specimens from 27 patients with mastocytosis and 48 control subjects for mast cell tryptase, CD117, and CD25. The numbers of mucosal mast cells per high-...

Tryptase is a tetrameric serine protease [l] which is present almost exclusively in the secretory granules of mast cells [2]. There has been some controversy over the extent to which tryptase may contribute to the generation of kinins which has been reported following mast cell activation [3,4]. Earlier studies suggested that tryptase does not generate bradykinin from either low molecular weigh...

Objective. To investigate the effects of Tong-Xie-Yao-Fang (TXYF) on intestinal mucosal mast cells in rats with postinfectious irritable bowel syndrome (PI-IBS). Design. PI-IBS rat models were established using a multistimulation paradigm. Then, rats were treated with TXYF intragastrically at doses of 2.5, 5.0, and 10.0 g·kg-1·d-1 for 14 days, respectively. Intestinal sensitivity was assessed b...

Correlative data suggest that cardiac mast cells are a component of the inflammatory response that is important to hypertension-induced adverse myocardial remodeling. However, a causal relationship has not been established. We hypothesized that adverse myocardial remodeling would be inhibited by preventing the release of mast cell products that may interact with fibroblasts and other inflammato...

Mast cells are differentiated in vitro from bone marrow precursors. In this study the development of bone marrow-derived mast cells was examined from histidine decarboxylase deficient (HDC-/-) and wild-type mice in the presence of IL-3. The number of non-adherent, tryptase- and c-kit-positive mast cells in bone marrow-derived cultures of HDC(-/-) mice was decreased compared to that of wild-type...