Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0018799 (heart disease)
 34,133 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

An important issue for the understanding of the host-parasite relationship in Chagas' disease is the extent of the action of the immune system on the parasite. To advance our understanding of this aspect, we evaluated the effect of leukocytes and/or sera from patients with Chagas' disease on trypomastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi. We incubated, in vitro, leukocytes and sera, from patients with Chagas' disease without evidence of heart disease (INF), patients with Chagasic cardiopathy (CDM) and healthy controls (VOL), with trypomastigotes at 37 degrees C for three hours. Mice were inoculated with parasites at the end of the incubation. We kept a record of the survival time of each animal and every three days we evaluated their Parasitemia. INF (36.4%) and CDM (42.9%) prolonged the prepatent period, but not Vol. Only CDM (57.1%) extended the survival time. The sera from CDM patients that extended the survival of mice prolonged the prepatent period. However serum alone did not extend the survival time, providing evidence that leukocytes are required to decrease the virulence of the inoculum. The capacity of leukocytes and sera, from CDM, to prolong survival time shows that the immune system of patients with Chagasic cardiomyopathy can affect the parasite more intensely than IFN. On the other hand, the higher frequency of positive xenodiagnosis in CDM (11), suggests that, in vivo, occur a down regulation of the immune response.
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PMID:Trypanosoma cruzi: infectivity and virulence of trypomastigotes incubated with leukocytes and serum from patients with Chagas' disease. 134 41

Complications of interferon (IFN) therapy include cardiac arrhythmias, impaired cardiac function and myocardial ischemia. Decreased heart rate variability (HRV) indices, impaired exercise tolerance and decreased left ventricular (LV) function are related to unfavorable outcome of heart disease. To investigate the effect of IFN therapy on HRV, exercise tolerance and cardiac function, 24-h ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring (AECG), two-dimensional echocardiography, and exercise treadmill testing (ETT) was performed in 9 patients (age 56 +/- 9 years-old) with chronic hepatitis and without underlying heart disease before and after treatment with IFN (recombinant alpha 2b; 10 x 10(6) U/day for 4 weeks). HRV parameters consisted of standard deviation of RR interval (sdNN, ms), SDANN (ms), S.D. index (ms), rMSSD (ms), pNN50 (%) and frequency analysis of heart rate spectrum resulted in low (ms, 0.04-0.15 Hz), high (ms, 0.15-0.40 Hz) and total (ms, 0.01-1.00 Hz) frequency components. Ischemia was not detected by AECG or ETT, and LV function was normal after INF treatment in all patients. However, INF treatment resulted in a decrease in exercise tolerance time (449 +/- 94 s vs. 329 +/- 67 s, P < 0.05) and a decrease in several HRV parameters (S.D. index, 42 +/- 5 ms vs. 37 +/- 9 ms; rMSSD, 22 +/- 5 ms vs. 19 +/- 4 ms; pNN50, 4 +/- 3% vs. 2 +/- 1%; P < 0.05). Further, patients treated with INF tended to have a lower sdNN and total frequency spectra, although this difference did not reach the level of statistical significance. These data suggest that the arrhythmogenic effect of INF may be mediated by decreases in HRV and impairment of exercise tolerance even in patients without overt heart diseases. Further, INF therapy may be contraindicated in patients with predisposing severe cardiac disorders, including arrhythmias, ischemia and decreased LV function.
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PMID:Recombinant interferon alpha treatment decreases heart rate variability indices and impairs exercise tolerance in patients with chronic hepatitis. 1627 87

We have studied in vitro proliferation induced by soluble antigenic fractions of T. cruzi epimastigotes and trypomastigotes, as well as their regulatory effect on the proliferative response to PPD. Both crude extracts of the parasite as well as bands from Western blots of soluble epimastigotes and trypomastigotes antigens were tested. Crude extracts elicited higher proliferation in mononuclear cells from patients with chagasic cardiomyopathy (CDM) than in those from patients with no evidence of cardiac pathology (INF). Fractionated antigens induced a lower proliferative response, in intensity as well as in frequency, than the crude extracts. With the soluble antigenic fractions of epimastigotes, cells from CDM patients gave higher responses to low molecular weight (MW) b ands (17 to 30 kDa), and from INF patients, to bands of intermediate MW (31 to 62 kDa); this pattern was inverted with soluble antigenic fractions of trypomastigotes. The two crude preparations induced either up-regulation or down-regulation of the PPD response in variable numbers of patients from both groups. With fractionated antigens, down-regulation intensity was stronger in patients without evidence of heart disease, but frequency was greater in patients with Chagasic cardiomyopathy (CDM). Six bands of western-blot of soluble trypomastigote antigens (B1, 4-7, and 9) induced significant down-regulation in 100% of CDM patients. The up-regulation elicited by most bands of the antigenic fractions was significantly higher, and more frequent in patients without heart pathology. Most bands of soluble trypomastigote antigens (10/15; 66.6%) did not induce up-regulation in patients with cardiomyopathy. These data suggest that differences in the clinical status of the two groups may reflect the recognition of different groups of antigens together with variations in the nature of the regulatory response.
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PMID:Proliferation and bystander suppression induced by antigens of Trypanosoma cruzi. Evaluation with a modification of the T cell blot technique. 1767 86

White matter injury (WMI) is a known complication following neonatal heart surgery in term infants. In preterm infants, WMI has been associated with the degree of systemic inflammation. It is not known whether inflammation is an important mechanism of WMI as documented by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) following neonatal heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass. Term neonates with congenital heart disease were enrolled in a prospective study with postoperative MRI. White matter injury was recorded by the number of T1 hyperintense foci with >5 foci consistent with significant WMI. Eleven candidate cytokine markers (INF-gamma, TNF-alpha, IL-1 beta, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12, and IL-13) were assayed preoperatively and daily for 5 days following surgery. Multiple clinical factors were recorded and correlated with WMI. Ninety-two subjects were enrolled in the study. The median age at surgery was 5 days (interquartile range 4-7 days). Compared with the presurgery level, there were statistically significant increases (p < 0.005) for 8 out of 11 inflammatory markers. In all, 64 postoperative MRIs were performed. No significant correlation was detected between WMI and clinical variables or inflammatory markers assessed immediately postoperative and on postoperative days 1 and 3, with exception of IL-1 beta on postoperative day 1. WMI correlates poorly with the systemic inflammatory response after congenital heart surgery and a number of herein measured clinical factors. WMI following neonatal heart surgery is a complex, still incompletely understood phenomenon that warrants continued investigation.
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PMID:White matter injury and the inflammatory response following neonatal cardiac surgery. 2560 Nov 35