Endobronchial Inflammatory Myofibroblastic Tumor in a 3-Year-Old Child.

Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT) is a mesenchymal tumor that can occur at any age. However, it is primarily seen in children, with the most common site being in the lung parenchyma, usually present with rare endobronchial lesions. This case reports the incidence in a 3-year-old girl diagnosed with pericardiac pneumonia treated with antibiotics with no clinical improvement. A chest computed tomography (CT) scan identified a 1.5-cm lesion in the left main bronchus. Bronchoscopy revealed complete obstruction of the left main stem bronchus. A left posterolateral thoracotomy was performed. Additionally, a left sleeve upper bronchial resection was conducted under fibroendoscopic control. Definitive histology confirmed IMT. After 2 years of endoscopic follow-up, there is no evidence of recurrence.

Fcgamma receptor IIA genotype and susceptibility to P. aeruginosa infection in patients with cystic fibrosis.

It has been suggested that genes other than CFTR could modulate the severity of lung disease in cystic fibrosis (CF). Neutrophil Fcgamma receptor II (FcgammaRII) is involved in host defense against microorganisms and in inflammatory response. We evaluated the association between genetic variability of this gene and both airway infection with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and severity of lung disease in patients with CF. We studied 167 Italian unrelated patients with CF and 50 control subjects. The distribution of FcgammaRIIA genotypes in CF patients was compared with that in control subjects and the different genotypes were related with the presence or absence of P. aeruginosa infection and markers of disease severity in CF patients. The distribution of FcgammaRIIA genotypes was not significantly different between CF patients and controls. We observed that in CF patients with the same CFTR genotype (DeltaF508/DeltaF508), those carrying the R allele of FcgammaRIIA had an increased risk of acquiring chronic P. aeruginosa infection (P=0.042, R.R.: 4.38; 95% CI: 1.17/22.4). Moreover, the frequency of R/R genotype in patients with chronic P. aeruginosa infection seems to be higher than that of control subjects and patients without chronic infection. The observation that CF patients carrying the R allele of FcgammaRIIA are at higher risk of acquiring chronic P. aeruginosa infection suggests that the FcgammaRII loci genetic variation is contributing to this infection susceptibility.

Analysis of the CARD15 variants R702W, G908R and L1007fs in Italian IBD patients.

CARD15 on chromosome 16 is the only IBD susceptibility gene identified among several mapped loci. Its recurrent variants R702W, G908R and L1007fs have shown significant association with Crohn's disease (CD), but not with ulcerative colitis (UC), in different Caucasian populations. We analysed these three variants in 184 CD and 92 UC Italian patients and in 177 healthy controls. L1007fs and G908R were independently associated with CD, while R702W showed a nonsignificant increase. After combining the three variants together, 32.6% of CD patients were positive vs 18.6% of the controls. The association was stronger for homozygotes and compound heterozygotes, OR 13.9 (1.8-108), and weaker but still significant for simple heterozygotes, OR 1.7 (1.0-2.9). An excess of homozygotes/compound heterozygotes also resulted from the comparison with Hardy-Weinberg expectations. Phenotype-genotype correlations were analysed first by univariate logistic regression and then by multivariate analysis, the effect of CARD15 positivity being adjusted according to the status of smoking, familiarity and sex, so as to focus on the predictivity of genetic and environmental risk factors on the clinical phenotype. Significant risk estimates of the CARD15 genotype were obtained for stricturing vs inflammatory behaviour, OR 2.76 (1.2-6.3), and for penetrating behaviour, 2.59 (1.0-6.6), and marginally significant for ileal vs colic location, OR 3.0 (0.9-9.8). Our findings indicate that the association of the CARD15 genotype with behaviour and location of disease holds also for the Italian population.

Selective activation of human dendritic cells by OM-85 through a NF-kB and MAPK dependent pathway.

OM-85 (Broncho-Vaxom®, Broncho-Munal®, Ommunal®, Paxoral®, Vaxoral®), a product made of the water soluble fractions of 21 inactivated bacterial strain patterns responsible for respiratory tract infections, is used for the prevention of recurrent upper respiratory tract infections and acute exacerbations in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients. OM-85 is able to potentiate both innate and adaptive immune responses. However, the molecular mechanisms responsible for OM-85 activation are still largely unknown. Purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of OM-85 stimulation on human dendritic cell functions. We show that OM-85 selectively induced NF-kB and MAPK activation in human DC with no detectable action on the interferon regulatory factor (IRF) pathway. As a consequence, chemokines (i.e. CXCL8, CXCL6, CCL3, CCL20, CCL22) and B-cell activating cytokines (i.e. IL-6, BAFF and IL-10) were strongly upregulated. OM-85 also synergized with the action of classical pro-inflammatory stimuli used at suboptimal concentrations. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with COPD, a pathological condition often associated with altered PRR expression pattern, fully retained the capability to respond to OM-85. These results provide new insights on the molecular mechanisms of OM-85 activation of the immune response and strengthen the rational for its use in clinical settings.

Modeling the role of genetic factors in characterizing extra-intestinal manifestations in Crohn's disease patients: does this improve outcome predictions?

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate to what extent an inefficient statistical model affects the study of genetic factors in extra-intestinal manifestations of Crohn's disease (CD) and how clinical predictions can be improved using more adequate techniques. MATERIALS: Extra-intestinal manifestations were studied in 152 CD patients. Three sets of variables were considered: (1) disease characteristics--presentation, behavior, location; (2) generic risk factors--age, gender, smoke and familiarity; and (3) genetic polymorphisms of the NOD2, CD14, TNF, IL12B, and IL1RN genes, whose involvement in CD is known or suspected. METHODS: Six statistical classifiers and data mining models were applied: (1) logistic regression as a benchmark; (2) generalized additive model; (3) projection pursuit regression; (4) linear discriminant analysis, (5) quadratic discriminant analysis; (6) artificial neural networks one-layer feed forward. Models were selected using the Akaike Information criterion and their accuracy was compared with several indexes. RESULTS: Extra-intestinal manifestations occurred in 75 patients. The model with clinical variables only selected familiarity, gender, presentation, and behavior as significantly associated with extra-intestinal manifestations, whereas when the genetic factors were also included familiarity was no longer significant, being replaced by the NOD2, TNF, and IL12B single nucleotide polymorphisms. The projection pursuit regression performed best in predicting individual outcomes (Kappa statistics 0.078 [SE 0.09] without and 0.108 [SE 0.075] with genetic information). One-layer artificial neural networks did not show any particular improvement in terms of model accuracy over nonlinear techniques. CONCLUSIONS: The correct identification of factors associated with extra-intestinal symptoms in CD, in particular the genetic ones, is highly dependent on the model chosen for the analysis. By using the most sophisticated statistical models, the accuracy of prediction can be strengthened by 10-64%, compared with linear regression.