C1 esterase inhibitor concentrate in 1085 Hereditary Angioedema attacks--final results of the I.M.P.A.C.T.2 study.

BACKGROUND: The placebo-controlled study International Multicentre Prospective Angioedema C1-INH Trial 1 (I.M.P.A.C.T.1) demonstrated that 20 U/kg C1 esterase inhibitor (C1-INH) concentrate (Berinert®; CSL Behring, Marburg, Germany) is effective in treating acute abdominal and facial Hereditary Angioedema (HAE) attacks. METHODS: I.M.P.A.C.T.2 was an open-label extension study of I.M.P.A.C.T.1 to evaluate the safety and efficacy of long-term treatment with 20 U/kg C1-INH for successive HAE attacks at any body location. Efficacy outcomes included patient-reported time to onset of symptom relief (primary) and time to complete resolution of all symptoms (secondary), analysed on a per-patient and per-attack basis. Safety assessments included adverse events, vital signs, viral safety and anti-C1-INH antibodies. RESULTS: During a median study duration of 24 months, 1085 attacks were treated in 57 patients (10-53 years of age). In the per-patient analysis, the median time to onset of symptom relief was 0.46 h and was similar for all types of attacks (0.39-0.48 h); the median time to complete resolution of symptoms was 15.5 h (shortest for laryngeal attacks: 5.8 h; 12.8-26.6 h for abdominal, peripheral and facial attacks). Demographic factors, type of HAE, intensity of attacks, time to treatment, use of androgens and presence of anti-C1-INH antibodies had no clinically relevant effect on the efficacy outcomes. There were no treatment-related safety concerns. No inhibitory anti-C1-INH antibodies were detected in any patient. CONCLUSIONS: A single dose of 20 U/kg C1-INH concentrate is safe and provides reliable efficacy in the long-term treatment of successive HAE attacks at any body location.

Human carcinoembryonic antigen, an intercellular adhesion molecule, blocks fusion and differentiation of rat myoblasts.

Human carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), a widely used tumor marker, is a member of a family of cell surface glycoproteins that are overexpressed in many carcinomas. CEA has been shown to function in vitro as a homotypic intercellular adhesion molecule. This correlation of overproduction of an adhesion molecule with neoplastic transformation provoked a test of the effect of CEA on cell differentiation. Using stable CEA transfectants of the rat L6 myoblast cell line as a model system of differentiation, we show that fusion into myotubes and, in fact, the entire molecular program of differentiation, including creatine phosphokinase upregulation, myogenin upregulation, and beta-actin downregulation are completely abrogated by the ectopic expression of CEA. The blocking of the upregulation of myogenin, a transcriptional regulator responsible for the execution of the entire myogenic differentiation program, indicates that CEA expression intercepts the process at a very early stage. The adhesion function of CEA is essential for this effect since an adhesion-defective N domain deletion mutant of CEA was ineffective in blocking fusion and CEA transfectants treated with adhesion-blocking peptides fused normally. Furthermore, CEA transfectants maintain their high division potential, whereas control transfectants lose division potential with differentiation similarly to the parental cell line. Thus the expression of functional CEA on the surface of cells can block terminal differentiation and maintain proliferative potential.

Laryngeal manifestations of vasculitic disease.

Vasculitis can involve the larynx in 4% to 10% of cases and can cause arthritis, edema, or upper airway obstruction within the larynx. Since most of these laryngeal manifestations are nonspecific, the clinician needs to keep a high index of suspicion when a patient complains of hoarseness or laryngeal discomfort and chronic constitutional symptoms. We present a case of crescentic glomerulonephritis associated with antineutrophil crytoplasmic autoantibody (ANCA). In addition, we discuss the usefulness and indications of ANCA serology and review multiple laryngeal manifestations that have been associated with common vasculitides and reported in the medical literature.

Predicted complementarity determining regions of the T cell antigen receptor determine antigen specificity.

The antigen receptor on T cells (TCR) has been predicted to have a structure similar to a membrane-anchored form of an immunoglobulin F(ab) fragment. Virtually all of the conserved amino acids that are important for inter- and intramolecular interactions in the VH-VL pair are also conserved in the TCR V alpha and V beta chains. A molecular model of the TCR has been constructed by homology and we have used the information from this, as well as the earlier structural predictions of others, to study the basis for specificity. Specifically, regions of a TCR cloned from an antigen-specific T cell were stitched into the corresponding framework of a second TCR. Results indicate that the substitution of amino acid sequences corresponding to the complementarity determining regions (CDRs) of immunoglobulin can convey the specificity for antigen and major histocompatibility complex molecules. These data are consistent with a role, but not an exclusive role, for CDR3 in antigen peptide recognition.