Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0699790 (colon cancer)
 28,837 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A 53-year-old Japanese woman with Evans syndrome and colon cancer had two episodes of herpes zoster. The first painful vesicular rashes involved the right lower abdomen and buttock and healed in one month. After one more month, a second attack occurred on the right thigh and leg and developed into generalized hemorrhagic lesions, which became crusted in about 90 days. The patient died 131 days after the second attack, when the lesions had almost subsided. Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) was isolated on the 59th day of the second attack. Her intracutaneous reactions to VZV antigen was negative, but the humoral antibodies were continuously positive.
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PMID:Unusual varicella zoster virus infection in a patient with colon carcinoma and Evans syndrome--delayed virus shedding generalized recurrent necrotic herpes zoster. 216 97

Discovered by Isaac and Lindemann as a substance able to induce a biological interference among viruses and host cells, interferon appeared to include three main antigenic classes: alpha, beta and gamma. There is a large variety of actions exhibited by different types of interferon and among them it is possible to distinguish an antiviral, antineoplastic, immunomodulatory or hormonal activity. Many years ago, the antiviral action seemed to be relative to some cellular membrane disorders, but later other mechanisms were stressed. Among them, it is worth describing the transcription and transduction of antiviral proteins like the oligoadenilsinthetase and proteinphosphokinase, able to cause the viral RNA breackage. The antineoplastic action is exerted by direct and indirect mechanisms. Direct mechanisms include an antiproliferative activity and the induction to cellular differentiation whereas the indirect ones involve the enhancement on tumor cell surfaces of some tumor associated antigens included in the I class of MHC system. The immunomodulatory action is exerted by the stimulation of macrophages, T cells and Killer cells cytotoxic activity. The list of viral diseases sensitive to interferon treatment includes condiloma acuminata, herpes zoster, chronic B and C hepatitis and Kaposi sarcoma AIDS-related. High proportions of overall response rate were observed among interferon treated patients with condiloma acuminata (80-100%). The use of interferon in the treatment of herpes zoster achieved good results regarding a shorter duration of the time spent to induce the chest pains and cutaneous symptoms disappearance when compared with that relative to other antiviral drugs. Results obtained in the treatment of chronic B and C hepatitis regard the disappearance of viral replication serological markers and the improvement of histological and enzymatic pattern. The effectiveness of interferon in the therapy of Kaposi sarcoma is demonstrated by the reduction of cutaneous symptoms and recurrent infectious diseases incidence. The use of interferon in treatment of solid tumors seems to play secondary role and, at any rate, to be adjuvant to chemotherapy. The administration of beta interferon as therapy of breast cancer seems to increase the estrogens and progesterone concentration in the neoplastic tissue and so it aims to improve the sensitivity to the tamoxifen treatment. The addition of interferon alpha both to 5-FU and cis-platinum seems to improve the proportion of overall response rate respectively in the treatment of colon cancer and head and neck cancer.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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PMID:[Update on the use of interferons in clinical practice]. 758 95

Cerebellitis associated with herpes zoster has rarely been observed. We report here a 76-year-old man who had a history of anterior resection for sigmoid colon cancer and presented during chemotherapy with vesicular rash of the left ear, neuralgic pain in the postauricular area, and ataxic gait. After a while, he developed left peripheral facial palsy, fever, aggravated gait ataxia, and prolonged nausea and vomiting. The left facial nerve was enhanced on gadolinium-enhanced brain magnetic resonance imaging. We suspected that the patient had Ramsay Hunt syndrome accompanied by cerebellitis, which has not been reported previously. Over the course of several months, during which he was treated with acyclovir and corticosteroid, his symptoms improved significantly.
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PMID:A case of ramsay hunt syndrome complicated by cerebellitis. 2039 7