Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0021051 (immunodeficiency)
 71,517 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Trichosanthin (TCS), a protein isolated from the root tuber of the Chinese medicinal herb Trichosanthes kirilowii Maxim., is used to induce abortion in China. It also possesses immunomodulatory, anti-tumor and anti-human immunodeficiency virus properties. TCS is a member of the family of ribosome-inactivating proteins and inactivates eukaryotic ribosomes via its N-glycosidase activity. The gene encoding TCS has been cloned and over-expressed and the crystal structure of this protein resolved to 1.73A. In this review, the various pharmacological properties of TCS are discussed and assessed.
 ...
PMID:Minireview: trichosanthin--a protein with multiple pharmacological properties. 802 44

The medical files of 532 patients who underwent medically induced abortion over a 10-year period (1982-1991) in the French department of Ille-et-Vilaine were studied in order to evaluate the indications and outcomes. Among the patients, 358 resided in the department (67%). Comparatively with the number of births during the 10-year period, there was a relative increase in the number of medically induced abortions from 3.5/1000 to 5.5/1000. This parameter was taken into consideration for the interpretation of a parallel decrease in the perinatal mortality during the same period, from 5.9/1000 to 5.1/1000. There was a maternal indication in 91 cases which correspond to the former category of therapeutic induced abortions. There was a clear increase in 1991 corresponding to abortions induced because of extremely premature rupture of the membranes which were formerly allowed to continue to dead births. Foetal indications were frequent: 441 cases (83%). Exogenous causes were lower (15.6%), particularly due to the disappearance of indications resulting from maternal irradiation. For indications related to infection, the vaccination against rubella and improved prenatal diagnosis resulted in the disappearance of rubella as an indication during the last three years of the study and a clear decrease in the number of toxoplasmosis indications. There were few indications due to maternal infection by human immunodeficiency virus (4 cases). Chromosomal abnormalities were the main cause of medically induced abortion among the foetal indications (27.7%).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
 ...
PMID:[Reflections on 10 years of medically induced abortions in Ille-et-Vilaine]. 804 May 73

There are a number of important ethical issues involved in the area of women's reproductive health care. Only a few of these could be covered in this short paper. Abortion is perhaps the most controversial issue of all and raises a number of ethical issues related to the rights of the woman versus the rights of the fetus. Since abortion is legal in the United States, the issue of the role of the obstetrician-gynecologist is discussed, particularly as related to the shortage of physicians willing to perform the procedure and the paucity of abortion training in obstetrics/gynecology residency programs. Other issues discussed include teen pregnancy, contraceptive research and pharmaceutical company contraceptive pricing strategies, high rates of maternal mortality in the developing world and human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome among women and children.
 ...
PMID:Reproductive health. An ethical perspective. 806

The health and social, psychological, and economic well-being of adolescent girls below the age of 17 are likely to be disadvantaged by pregnancy and childbirth. Although there is a worldwide trend toward higher age of marriage, there is also a worldwide trend toward an increase in adolescent sexual relations prior to marriage. Sexual relations in adolescence, particularly in developing countries, are likely to take place without the use of modern contraceptives or protection against sexually transmitted diseases, including the human immunodeficiency virus. By the year 2000 more than 85%, or over two billion, of the world's people below the age of 20 will live in developing countries. In addition, there are 40 million street children in Latin America, 25-30 million in Asia, and 10 million in Africa. For census or survey purposes unions can be considered to be a) legal marriage, whether civil, religious or customary; and b) common-law marriage, consensual union and cohabitation. The legal minimum age of marriage is often different for males and females. More than 50 countries allow marriage at 16 or below, with parental consent. A much higher proportion of adolescents marry in Sub-Saharan Africa and southern and western Asia; this is less true for eastern Asia, the Caribbean region, and many countries in Latin America. In 11 Sub-Saharan countries surveyed, rates of contraceptive use varied from 1% to 7% among unmarried sexually-active adolescents aged 15-19, and from 1% to 6% for those who were married. In 13 of 14 developing Asian countries surveyed, below 10% of adolescents under age 18 had ever used a modern contraceptive. In Latin America and the Caribbean, in 8 of the 11 countries surveyed the proportion was below 10%. In most of the developing world, abortion is highly restrictive, but even in countries where it is legal, screening procedures, parental consent, and its cost will deter adolescents from safe abortion.
 ...
PMID:Reproductive health in adolescence. 808 68

For 20 years, clinical reports and laboratory observations have suggested that allogeneic blood transfusion effects important changes in the recipient's immune response. The seminal clinical studies involved dose-dependent improvement in renal allograft survival in patients transfused with allogeneic whole blood, red blood cells, and buffy coat preparations. Subsequently, a burgeoning, but unclear literature proposed that allogeneic blood transfusion decreases survival or tumor-free survival of patients who undergo operations for a variety of different malignancies. Similar studies suggest that the risk of postoperative infection increases when patients receive allogeneic blood. Transfusion reportedly improves some patients with Crohn's disease. In summary, these findings have been interpreted as evidence for an immunosuppressive effect of allogeneic blood transfusion. A small prospective study showed that paternal buffy coat infusion decreases the rate of fetal loss in a subset of women with recurrent abortion. These data suggest induction of "tolerance." Laboratory studies confirm changes in lymphocyte subsets, lymphocyte activation, natural killer cell activity, antigen-presenting function, and phagocytic cell function in patients and animals that receive allogeneic blood. The clinical relevance of these observations remains controversial. Allogeneic leukocytes induce expression of latent cell-associated viruses (human immunodeficiency virus, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus), suggesting further immune-mediated adverse effects of transfusion. The mechanisms and clinical importance of these observations have become areas of intense interest and investigation for transfusion medicine.
 ...
PMID:Immunologic aspects of blood transfusion. 820 21

We report a case of infectious osteitis pubis following a first trimester abortion in a female seropositive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Joint aspiration yielded Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the patient was successfully treated with oral ciprofloxacin.
 ...
PMID:Infectious osteitis pubis in an HIV seropositive female. 820 72

The increase in the number of human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1)-infected children is a direct consequence of the heterosexual spread of the disease to women and the growing number of HIV-positive i.v. drug users. It is not known how the majority of infants born to HIV-1-infected women escape HIV-1 infection, and, for those infected, the timing of HIV-1 transmission has yet to be determined. In addition, the role of maternal antibodies in the prevention of HIV-1 transmission to the fetus is unclear. We have previously demonstrated a correlation between vertical transmission and the absence of high-affinity/avidity antibodies to a peptide, KRI-HIGPGRAFYT, which corresponds to a region of the primary neutralizing domain of the gp120 V3 loop of HIVMN (MN-PND). The present study examines the correlation between the presence of these high affinity antibodies in women completing a pregnancy or undergoing an elective abortion and the detection of HIV-1 infection in their aborted fetuses. In several instances, transmission occurred despite high-affinity antibodies to the MN-PND. We have, therefore, evaluated the reactivity of sera to different MN-PND variants. In one infant born to a mother with high-affinity/avidity antibodies to KRI-HIGPGRAFYT (classic MN-PND), the infected baby developed antibodies to an MN-PND variant peptide against which his mother did not mount a humoral immune response during pregnancy. This finding indicates that fetal infection with MN-PND escape mutants arising during pregnancy may occur during a period when the mother is serologically negative.
 ...
PMID:Maternofetal transmission of human immunodeficiency virus-1: the role of antibodies to the V3 primary neutralizing domain. 843 79

There is a growing awareness of the burden and implications of reproductive ill health as contributed by unsafe motherhood (during pregnancy, childbirth, abortion), reproductive tract infection (RTIs) and cancer, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), poorly regulated fertility, infertility, unwanted pregnancy and adolescent/teenage sexuality and pregnancy. Sexual health further entails a state of well-being in expression of sexuality, prevention of unwanted pregnancies, prevention of STIs and AIDS and freedom from sexual abuse and violence. Reproductive health is increasingly being recognized as one of the corner stones of health and a major determinant and indicator of human social development. It is central to general health as it reflects health in childhood and adolescence and sets the stage for health and life expectancy beyond the reproductive years. It is affected by other health aspects such as nutrition and environment, low birth weight, neonatal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. According to the WHO, reproductive health problems account for more than one third of the total burden of disease in women and more than 10 pc of that in men. The challenges posed by the subordinate status of women, the exclusion of men in reproductive health programmes and the need for shaping adolescents' sexual knowledge and behaviour are viewed against today's poor reproductive and sexual health outcomes in the context of Africa. Education systems, employers and policy makers are challenged to provide adequate STI/HIV education and on-site (school, work, satellite, drop in) control services. Prevention interventions, disease and health trends and their outcome require systematic research in order to impact on policy. Reproductive health education should be universal, especially for adolescents, and its impact assessed against appropriate monitoring criteria such as reproductive morbidity, STI prevalence and abortion complications.
 ...
PMID:Reproductive and sexual health: a research and developmental challenge. 865 76

We studied vertical transmission of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) to determine whether it might provide a model with which to study intervention strategies for mother-to-offspring transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). We found that pregnant cats acutely infected with FIV (FIV-CSU-2771) transmitted the virus to their offspring via both prenatal and postnatal routes. In utero transmission led to several pathogenic consequences including arrested fetal development, abortion, stillbirth, subnormal birth weights, and birth of viable, virus-infected, and asymptomatic but T cell-deficient kittens. Postnatal milk-borne FIV transmission was demonstrated by the presence of cell-free and cell-associated virus in colostrum and milk and through a foster-nursing experiment. The potential for intrapartum FIV transmission was documented by frequent virus isolation from vaginal wash cells in both the pre- and postpartum periods. FIV transmission was efficient during acute maternal infection, leading to an overall infection rate of 70%. We conclude that FIV vertical transmission may be a useful model with which to evaluate intervention strategies for HIV transmission from mother to child.
 ...
PMID:Vertical transmission of feline immunodeficiency virus. 882 Jun 2

Since 1976, we have performed more than 240 fetal tissue transplants (FLTs) to treat 63 patients with severe immunodeficiency disease (IDD), with inborn errors of metabolism (IEM), or with severe aplastic anemia. In both IDD and IEM, FLT into postnatal recipients has demonstrated beneficial effects (67%) of the patients were either cured or improved significantly). In 1988, we developed in utero FLT into human fetuses, taking advantage of the immunological tolerance of young fetuses. The transplants have involved fetuses suffering from various diseases at 12-28 weeks postfertilization with 2 of the 6 cases eventually resulting in abortion. With the 4 other fetuses, a favorable outcome was observed: 3 children are now more than 4 years old, and are alive and well with evidence of engraftment, reconstitution of immunity, and partial correction of beta zero thalassemia. In the fourth case, the fetus is alive and well and birth is expected soon. In utero transplantation of stem cells is a therapy with remarkable advantages: (a) tolerance induction due to the immune immaturity of the host, (b) lack of graft-versus-host disease due to the immaturity of the donor, (c) ideal isolation of the fetus in the maternal uterus, and (d) an optimal environment for donor fetal cell development in the vicinity of host fetal cells and growth factors.
 ...
PMID:Treatment of human fetuses and induction of immunological tolerance in humans by in utero transplantation of stem cells into fetal recipients. 887 6


<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next >>