Cutaneous lesions as presenting symptoms of primary biliary cirrhosis: an undifferentiated connective tissue disease-like onset.

We describe two patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) who presented with specific symptoms mimicking an undifferentiated connective tissue disease (arthromyalgia, fatigue, cutaneous lesions either morbillous-like or urticarial, the latter with an eosinophil infiltrate of upper dermis). Subsequent detection firstly of eosinophilia in the blood and secondarily of antimitochondrial antibodies with results of liver biopsy allowed a diagnosis of asymptomatic PBC. In our cases, a peculiar sign of early stage of PBC was represented also by the eosinophilia in the liver.

[Etanercept in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. A case report]. / Artrite reumatoide in trattamento con etanercept. A proposito di un caso.

Authors present a case of a patient affected by rheumatoid arthritis, non responder to the different DMARDs treatment; besides some of these treatments have even provoked relevant side effects. It has been attempted the use of biological therapy, using etanercept. After some months of this treatment with a high performance of the therapy and great subsidence of the disease, the appearance of a severe infection has compelled the interruption of the therapy, causing very slow recovery. Authors underline the relevant importance of a careful and constant observation of the patients under biological therapy, since it could be always possible the appearance of serious infections.

[Asymptomatic hyper-creatine-phosphokinasemia: a veritable disease? Observation in some cases]. / L'ipercreatinfosfochinasemia asintomatica può essere considerata una vera malattia? A proposito di alcuni casi osservati.

Myopathy is a pathology of the muscle function, without clinical and instrumental signs that are involved the central nervous system and the peripheral one. In all pathologies causing a damage of the muscle fibres, a release of enzymes as GOT, GPT, LDH, aldolase, CPK occurs. The most significant enzyme for the muscle damage is CPK. Studies state that an increase of the CPKemia is not always an expression of muscle damages, but there are physiological changes in relation to the age, physical activities and racial variations. By the way, it is necessary to focus our attention on this matter. Authors, starting from the observation of lots of cases under their studies, have described two of them, that up to their careful observation could reveal significant.