Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0034065 (pulmonary embolism)
 14,979 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A new latex-agglutination kit for rapid screening for fibrinogen/fibrin degradation products (FDP/fdp) has been compared with a standard tanned red cell hemagglutination inhibition immunoassay (TRCHII). The latex-agglutination test results agreed with the TRCHII results for 489 of 588 samples (83%). FDP/fdp values were elevated by the latex-agglutination kit when normal by the TRCHII for 79 (13%) samples, and the reverse was true for 20 (3%) samples. Serial dilution of serum sample allowed reliable semiquantitation of FDP/fdp levels compared with TRCHII results (r=less than .001). The latex-agglutination test gave FDP/fdp values of larger than or equal to 10 mug. per ml. for sera from 11 of 13 patients who had acute pulmonary embolism and for only one of 24 normal control samples. The direct latex-agglutination kit for FDP/fdp appears to have appropriate sensitivity to serve as a screening test for acute pulmonary embolism in patients not receiving heparin therapy.
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PMID:Comparison of a direct latex-agglutination technic with the tanned red cell hemagglutination inhibition immunoassay (TRCHII) for semiquantitation of fibrinogen/fibrin degradation products. 126 14

BACKGROUND: A nucleosome is a primary repeating unit of organized DNA in chromatin, and cell death may lead to increased levels of circulating nucleosomes inplasma (PNLs) in various circumstances such as inflammation, pulmonary embolism, autoimmune disease and cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We investigated PNLs in 96 patients with stage 0-III breast cancer (node-negative, n =57; node-positive, n=39), and in 111 women without any evidence of disease as healthy controls. PNLs were detected using the Cell Death Detection ELISAplus kit (Boehringer Mannheim, Japan). RESULTS: The PNLs in normal controls were 0.010 +/- 0.012 units (mean +/- SD), while PNLs were significantly higher in both node-negative breast cancer (0.153 +/- 0.242) and node-positive breast cancer patients (0.116 +/- 0.172) (p <0.01). When PNLs were classified as high (>0.10) and low( </=0.10), no correlation was found between high PNLs and clinicopathological factors such as tumor size, menopausal status, estrogen receptor status, histological type and lymphatic or venous spread in node-negative breast cancer. The relapse-free survival of patients with high PNLs tended to be better than those with low PNLs in both node-negative and node-positive breast cancer. CONCLUSION: Increased PNLs were found in breast cancer patients, and PNLs seem promising as a new prognostic factor for both node-negative and node-positive breast cancer.
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PMID:Plasma Nucleosome Levels in Node-Negative Breast Cancer Patients. 1109 44

The nucleosome is the primary repeating unit of DNA organization in chromatin, and cell death may lead to increased levels of circulating nucleosomes in plasma (PNLs) in various circumstances such as inflammation, pulmonary embolism, autoimmune disease, and cancer. Cell death can also be induced by chemotherapeutic agents. We investigated PNLs in 99 patients with primary breast cancer, 26 with recurrent disease, 11 with benign breast disease, and 27 with other histological types of cancer. In 18 patients with recurrent breast cancer who received docetaxel (D, 60 mg/m2) every 3 weeks as second line therapy after an anthracycline-based regimen, PNLs were investigated before and during the administration of D. One hundred and seventy-four healthy controls (111 females, 63 males) without any evidence of disease were also investigated. PNLs were detected using the cell death detection ELISAplus kit. PNLs were significantly higher in patients with primary breast cancer (mean +/- SD: 0.135 +/- 0.213) and in recurrent breast cancer (0.182 +/- 0.196) as compared with healthy female controls (0.010 +/- 0.012) (p < 0.01). In patients with primary breast cancer, no correlation was found between PNLs and clinicopathological characteristics. On the other hand, PNLs were decreased after mastectomy (p < 0.05). Patients with other histological types of cancer (0.244+/-0.383) also showed significantly higher PNLs as compared to healthy controls (p < 0.01), and PNLs were elevated independently of the histological type of cancer. In patients with recurrent breast cancer, PNLs showed a transient increase 24 h after the administration of D, and these increases correlated with the degree of subsequent leukopenia. In a follow-up study, pretreatment baseline PNLs decreased markedly when a response was obtained, whereas there was no decrease in either stable disease or progressive disease. Thus, increased PNLs were found in cancer patients, and PNLs seem to be a sensitive marker of cell death that could be predictive of both leukopenia and response to chemotherapy.
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PMID:Clinical significance of plasma nucleosome levels in cancer patients. 1140 35

Assessment of D-dimer in plasma is routinely used for the exclusion of venous thrombosis and the monitoring of hypercoagulability. Little information is available about the performance of D-dimer assays in clinical laboratories examined by external quality assessment schemes. We obtained results from 423 laboratories measuring plasma pools from patients with elevated D-dimer levels mixed with human normal plasma. The results from five samples were reported containing D-dimer from the lower normal range up to a 20-fold increased level. In addition, information about the assignment of a cut-off point and the medical need to apply these assays was obtained by standardized questionnaire. Participants reported results and additional information from 20 different assays. Lack of standardization regarding the calibration concepts obstructs comparability of results. Results in one sample varied up to 20-fold between the assays applied. In addition, a high variability was reported around the cut-off values introduced for the exclusion of venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. As a consequence, generally accepted cut-off values cannot be established. For cut-off assignment, 62% of participants used the kit insert but also 14% used local validation. In conclusion, standardization or at least harmonization of D-dimer assays is necessary to ensure comparability of D-dimer plasma levels measured in clinical routine.
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PMID:The performance of quantitative D-dimer assays in laboratory routine. 1609 35

This study included 13 selected patients treated by surgical excision for lesions that proved postoperatively to be gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) by histopathological and immunohistochemistry studies. The demographic, clinical and operative reports data were collected. Eight cases were gastric GISTs, four cases were small bowel GISTs (jejunum 1 & ileum, 3) and GIST of the sigmoid colon was in one patient. Eight cases presented at the emergency department due to hematemesis (3), gastrointestinal obstruction (3), bowel perforation (1) and severe bleeding per rectum (1). Three cases presented with a feeling of abdominal fullness and ill-defined palpable abdominal mass. Two cases were discovered incidentally during GIT endoscopy for dyspepsia. Diagnosis of GISTs was presumed on clinical basis and operative findings from gross morphological features. Complete resection (R0) was achieved for 12 tumors (92.3%). The immunohistochemistry profile was positive for C-kit for all cases. One operative death was due to massive pulmonary embolism. Postoperative complications occurred in three (23%) as upper GIT bleeding (1), biliary gastritis (1) and wound infection (1), and one (7.69%) of ileum tumor recurrence.
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PMID:Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs): clinical presentation, diagnosis, surgical treatment and its outcome. 1920 71

D-dimer is an important marker of different coagulation diseases, such as venous thromboembolism (including deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism) and disseminated intravascular coagulation. Though it is frequently used in many clinical diagnostic situations, the D-dimer assays currently lack standardization due to its inherent heterogeneity which makes the antibody-based methods have different quantitative results and cutoffs to define an abnormal value. In this study, we report the first antibody-free D-dimer quantification method. In the method, a cross-linked peptide of fibrin D domain carboxyl terminal cross-linked by the factor XIIIa was used to represent the D-dimer. By using a filter-aided sample preparation and a nickel immobilized metal affinity chromatography enrichment strategy, the complexity of the plasma sample was significantly reduced, and the cross-linked peptide was enriched effectively for analysis with parallel reaction monitoring in mass spectrometry. The linear range of this method was 3.125-400 nmol/L which spans over two magnitudes. Recovery and reproducibility of the method were found to be good. To further demonstrate the performance of our method, D-dimer concentrations of 25 human plasma samples were analyzed, and the results had a good correlation between with the commercial D-dimer assay kit used in hospitals. This method was completely antibody-free and has the potential to promote the standardization of D-dimer analysis.
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PMID:A Mass-Spectrometry-Based Antibody-Free Approach Enables the Quantification of D-Dimer in Plasma. 3251 45