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Endothelial cell disease and malfunction, defense activation in serious COVID-19.
Purpose To present the problems and possibilities of diagnostic and treatment in a patient with resistant exudative-constrictive pericarditis. Methods The male patient 31 y. was admitted to the clinic due to exudative pericarditis and arthritis of the left knee joint. His medical history periodic febrile fever with a cough, episodes of syncope and atrial fibrillation, treatment with antibiotics and corticosteroids with a temporary effect. Results No data were received for systemic disease, hypothyroidism, tumors. With CT in both lungs, small areas of fibrosis and lymphadenopathy were identified. Pericardial sheets diffusely thickened. EchoCG shows one liter of pericardial fluid with fibrin. All tests for viruses and tuberculosis are negative. Thoracoscopy was performed. Vadimezan Morphological examination showed tuberculosis granulomas with caseous necrosis. The growth of mycobacteria of tuberculosis from sputum was obtained. Therapy included pyrazinamide, ethambutol, levofloxacin, prednisolone 20 mg / day. Ponce's disease regressed. Due to the increase of constriction, subtotal pericardectomy was performed. Conclusion Tuberculosis is one of the real causes of pericarditis with massive effusion and an outcome in constriction. The negative results of all laboratory tests for tuberculosis do not exclude the diagnosis. It is necessary to use invasive morphological diagnosis, including thoracoscopic biopsy.Tuberculosis (TB) continues to pose a significant public health problem. Tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is the most severe form of extra-pulmonary TB. TBM carries a high mortality rate, including for those receiving treatment for TB. Diagnosis of TBM is difficult for clinicians as it can clinically present similarly to other forms of meningitis. The difficulty in diagnosis often leads to a delay in treatment and subsequent mortality. Those who survive are left with long-term sequelae leading to lifelong disability. The microbiologic diagnosis of TBM requires the isolation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of an infected patient. The diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis continues to be challenging for clinicians. Unfortunately, many cases of TBM cannot be confirmed based on clinical and imaging findings as the clinical findings are nonspecific, while laboratory techniques are largely insensitive or slow. Until recently, the lack of accessible and timely tests has contributed to a delay in diagnosis and subsequent morbidity and mortality for many patients, particularly those in resourcelimited settings. The availability of Xpert Ultra and point-of-care lipoarabinomannan (LAM) testing could represent a new era of prompt diagnosis and early treatment of tuberculous meningitis. However, clinicians must be cautious when ruling out TBM with Xpert Ultra due to its low negative predictive value. Due to the limitations of current diagnostics, clinicians should utilize a combination of diagnostic modalities in order to prevent morbidity in patients with TBM.Background Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) is a non-atherosclerotic disease that affects medium-sized arteries and results in stenosis, dissection, aneurysm or occlusion. It is most commonly reported in the renal and carotid arteries. Involvement of coronary arteries is quite rare and and leads to serious consequences. Case A 62-year-old African American woman with a history of mitral valve prolapse presented with chest discomfort associated with diaphoresis. Her EKG initially showed ST segment changes in leads II, III, and V2-V5 which resolved in approximately 30 minutes. Her troponin peaked to 20 ng/L during her hospital course. A bedside echocardiogram revealed an EF of 45% with mid, distal septal and apical hypokinesis. Decision-making The patient was admitted to the Cardiac Care Unit for treatment of an NSTEMI. She underwent cardiac catheterization, which revealed single-vessel coronary disease with diffuse narrowing of the distal LAD, beyond the first diagonal branch down to the apex. CT angiography of her abdomen and pelvis showed mild narrowing of the mid-right renal artery with a small fusiform aneurysm measuring approximately 5 mm. Her carotid duplex showed tortuosity in the right internal carotid artery. Given the multiple vascular anomalies, a diagnosis of fibromuscular dysplasia was considered. Conclusion Acute coronary syndrome in fibromuscular dysplasia requires an integrated approach to management, especially if there is associated malignant hypertension and/or dissection.Vγ9Vδ2 T cell-based anticancer immunotherapy has shown some promise in early-phase clinical trials but there is still large room for improvement. Using the extracellular domain of the human NKG2D, a stimulatory receptor expressed by Vγ9Vδ2 T cells, we constructed NKG2D ligand-specific chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). We adopted a non-viral CAR approach via mRNA electroporation to modify Vγ9Vδ2 T cells and demonstrated that, upon interaction with the NKG2D ligand-positive cancer cells, the CARs substantially enhanced the cytotoxic activity of the modified cells toward multiple cultured solid tumor cell lines, including those resistant to Zometa treatment. Repeated doses of the CAR-expressing cells resulted in tumor regression in mice with established tumors, extending median survival time by up to 132% as compared to the PBS control group. The findings suggest clinical potential for RNA CAR-modified Vγ9Vδ2 T cells to treat a wide variety of NKG2D ligand-expressing cancers.Chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) targeting CD19 or B cell maturation antigen (BCMA) are highly effective against B cell malignancies. However, application of CAR-T to less differentially expressed targets remains a challenge due to lack of tumor-specific antigens and CAR-T controllability. CD123, a highly promising leukemia target, is expressed not only by leukemic and leukemia-initiating cells, but also by myeloid, hematopoietic progenitor, and certain endothelial cells. Thus, CAR-T lacking fine-tuned control mechanisms pose a high toxicity risk. To extend the CAR-T target landscape and widen the therapeutic window, we adapted our rapidly switchable universal CAR-T platform (UniCAR) to target CD123. UniCAR-T efficiently eradicated CD123+ leukemia in vitro and in vivo. Activation, cytolytic response, and cytokine release were strictly dependent on the presence of the CD123-specific targeting module (TM123) with comparable efficacy to CD123-specific CAR-T in vitro. We further demonstrated a pre-clinical proof of concept for the safety-switch mechanism using a hematotoxicity mouse model wherein TM123-redirected UniCAR-T showed reversible toxicity toward hematopoietic cells compared to CD123 CAR-T.
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