Antineoplastic Agents ; therapeutic use ; Back Pain ; complications ; drug therapy ; Blood Sedimentation ; Hemoglobins ; metabolism ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; methods ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Multiple Myeloma ; complications ; drug therapy ; therapy ; Spondylitis, Ankylosing ; complications ; drug therapy ; Treatment Outcome

Right upper abdominal pain is a common symptom in patients presenting to surgery emergency. Most of these cases can be diagnosed accurately on clinical evaluation or imaging. We report an unusual case of right upper abdominal pain, which could not be diagnosed correctly pre-operatively despite using various imaging modalities.

BACKGROUND: Syndecan-1 (sCD138) has recently been suggested to predict the clinical course of early-stage chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), but few studies have been reported. This study assessed the role of syndecan-1 in the prognosis of patients with CLL and its correlation with other prognostic markers. METHODS: This prospective study was performed in the hematology department of an Indian tertiary care center, over nineteen months (Jun. 2009–Jan. 2011). Forty-nine new patients with CLL presented during this period and were included. Twenty age- and gender-matched healthy patients served as controls, and six patients with multiple myeloma were included as positive controls. Baseline serum syndecan-1 concentrations were measured for all patients at presentation using ELISA (Diaclone, Besancon, France). At baseline, patients were divided into low (N=10), intermediate (N=18) and high (N=21) risk cohorts. Serum syndecan-1 levels in these patient subgroups were compared with clinical and laboratory parameters. RESULTS: The median syndecan-1 level in patients with CLL (73.32 ng/mL, range, 28.71–268.0 ng/mL) was marginally higher than that in healthy patients (63.10 ng/mL, range, 55.0–75.11 ng/mL). At presentation, syndecan-1 levels in patients with CLL correlated strongly with symptomatic disease (cytopenias, P=0.004) and higher clinical stage (Rai stage III and IV, P=0.001) markers and poorly with β2-microglobulin level (P=0.270), diffuse BM infiltration (P=0.882), and surrogate mutation status markers (CD 38, P=0.174 and ZAP-70, P=0.459). Syndecan-1 levels dichotomized by the median value were higher with progressive disease markers, e.g. shorter lymphocyte doubling time (LDT, P=0.015) and increased treatment (P=0.099). CONCLUSION: In CLL, serum syndecan-1 (sCD138) levels at presentation correlate with disease burden, and higher baseline levels may predict early treatment.
Cohort Studies ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Hematology ; Humans ; Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell* ; Lymphocytes ; Multiple Myeloma ; Prognosis ; Prospective Studies ; Syndecan-1* ; Tertiary Care Centers

BACKGROUND: Aberrant myeloid antigen (MA) co-expression and high expression of CD34 antigen on the blasts of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients are independently reported to have a role in pathogenesis and prognosis. This study was conducted to determine whether these two parameters are related. METHODS: A total of 204 cases of ALL were included in an analysis of blast immunophenotypic data. CD34 expression was categorized as low when less than 50% of blasts were CD34-positive (CD34low) and as high when 50% or more were CD34-positive (CD34high). RESULTS: Of 204 cases of ALL, 163 and 41 were of B-cell origin (B-ALL) and T-cell origin (T-ALL), respectively. Of all cases, 132 (64.7%) showed co-expression of MA and among these, 101 (76.51%) were CD34high, while the remaining 31 (23.48%) were CD34low. Of 72 cases without MA co-expression, 25 (34.72%) were CD34high and 47 (67.25%) were CD34low. Furthermore, of 163 cases of B-ALL, 111 showed co-expression of MA and 84 of these were CD34high. Of 52 cases of B-ALL without MA expression, 22 were CD34high. Among 41 cases of T-ALL, 21 co-expressed MA, 17 of which were CD34high. Moreover, all 20 cases of T-ALL without co-expression of MA were CD34low. These differences were statistically significant. CONCLUSION: We observed a strong correlation between aberrant MA expression and CD34high expression on the blasts of ALL. We hypothesize that these different patient subsets may represent unique prognostic characteristics.
Antigens, CD34 ; B-Lymphocytes ; Flow Cytometry ; Humans ; Immunophenotyping ; Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma* ; Precursor T-Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma ; Prognosis ; T-Lymphocytes ; Tertiary Care Centers*

Immunoglobulin G4 (IgG4)–related diseases are a spectrum of systemic inflammatory conditions of unknown etiology, which are characterized by infiltration of tissues by IgG4 plasma cells and sclerosing inflammation (Cheuk and Chan Adv Anat Pathol 17:303-32, 2010). Although this condition was initially described in relation to autoimmune pancreatitis, now it has been reported in almost every organ system of body (Zen and Nakanuma Am J Surg Pathol 34:1812-9, 2010, Masaki et al. Ann Rheuma Dis 68:1310-5, 2009). Orbital involvement by IgG4 disease can involve extraocular muscles (EOM), lacrimal glands, conjunctiva, eyelids, infraorbital nerve, orbital fat, and nasolacrimal system (McNab and McKelvie. Ophthal Plast Reconstr Surg 31:167-78, 2015, Katsura et al. Neuroradiology 54:873-82, 2012). The basis of using ⁶⁸Ga-DOTANOC PET/CT in IgG4 orbital disease is the known expression of somatostatin receptors in chronic inflammatory cells (Cuccurullo et al. Indian J Radiol Imaging 27:509-16, 2017) and also avidity shown previously in other IgG4-related diseases (Cheng et al. Clin Nucl Med 43:773-6, 2018).
Conjunctiva ; Eyelids ; Immunoglobulin G ; Immunoglobulins ; Inflammation ; Lacrimal Apparatus ; Muscles ; Orbit ; Orbital Diseases ; Pancreatitis ; Plasma Cells ; Positron-Emission Tomography and Computed Tomography ; Receptors, Somatostatin

Immunoglobulin G4 (IgG4)–related diseases are a spectrum of systemic inflammatory conditions of unknown etiology, which are characterized by infiltration of tissues by IgG4 plasma cells and sclerosing inflammation (Cheuk and Chan Adv Anat Pathol 17:303-32, 2010). Although this condition was initially described in relation to autoimmune pancreatitis, now it has been reported in almost every organ system of body (Zen and Nakanuma Am J Surg Pathol 34:1812-9, 2010, Masaki et al. Ann Rheuma Dis 68:1310-5, 2009). Orbital involvement by IgG4 disease can involve extraocular muscles (EOM), lacrimal glands, conjunctiva, eyelids, infraorbital nerve, orbital fat, and nasolacrimal system (McNab and McKelvie. Ophthal Plast Reconstr Surg 31:167-78, 2015, Katsura et al. Neuroradiology 54:873-82, 2012). The basis of using ⁶⁸Ga-DOTANOC PET/CT in IgG4 orbital disease is the known expression of somatostatin receptors in chronic inflammatory cells (Cuccurullo et al. Indian J Radiol Imaging 27:509-16, 2017) and also avidity shown previously in other IgG4-related diseases (Cheng et al. Clin Nucl Med 43:773-6, 2018).