A simple and practical technic for detecting cancer cells in urine and urinary bladder washings by flow cytometry.

DNA measurement by flow cytometry has been demonstrated to be a potentially useful technic in the diagnosis of bladder cancer by detecting neoplastic cells in bladder washings and urine specimens. The authors' goal was to develop a simple and practical method utilizing the new generation of cytofluorographs designed for use in the clinical laboratory. This method combined direct fixation with cell lysis yielding fixed intact nuclei. Following RNase and pepsin digestion, the nuclei were separated from debris and aggregates on a sucrose barrier, stained with ethidium bromide, and analyzed with an argon laser analytic cytofluorograph. Urines and bladder washings from 14 patients with positive urinary cytology and histologically diagnosed bladder cancers were compared with specimens from patients without urothelial malignancies. DNA histograms clearly delineated aneuploid from diploid populations and often identified S, G2M, and G1 phase nuclei. Aneuploid populations have been detected in all tumor specimens with positive cytologies studied to date.

Leukocyte adhesion molecules as a cofactor in AIDS: basic science and pilot study.

It is well known that the AIDS pandemic is a consequence of pandemic HIV infection. However, Koch's postulates are not satisfied for two reasons: 1) AIDS cannot be experimentally produced in animals susceptible to HIV infection and 2) some people have AIDS (idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia) in the absence of HIV infection. It follows that there is a human immunologic cofactor (HIC) that causes AIDS when certain other conditions are satisfied, and the most common of these other conditions (but not the only one) is HIV infection. Results from microbiology make leukocyte adhesion molecules a good candidate for the HIC. We have tested this hypothesis with a pilot study in which a small number of patients with HIV disease were infused with a monoclonal mouse antibody (MmAb) directed against an LFA-1 adhesion epitope, and then with F(ab) and F(ab)2' fragments that bind to the same epitope but are nonimmunogenic. Both agents reduced peripheral viral burden significantly but fragments were more effective in this respect than the MmAb due to the mitogenic properties of the latter. For the same reason, only the MmAb were highly effective in raising circulating levels of single and double-marked CD4+ T lymphocytes, with a correlated resolution of cutaneous anergy.