Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
9.1 Urinary glycosaminoglycan in the course of FMF
Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is characterised by recurrent fever and serositis. The most important complication of the disease is amyloidosis, which is diagnosed by biopsy. Cheaper and non-invasive methods would be important in the early diagnosis of amyloidosis. We have attempted to study the role of urinary glycosaminoglycan (GAG) in the early diagnosis of amyloidosis. The study group included 123 patients with FMF without attack and 11 patients with FMF secondary amyloidosis. Patients with acute attack were excluded. Eight healthy children and 10 patients with primary nephrotic syndrome served as controls. Microalbumin was also measured in patients with FMF. In patients with amyloidosis, urinary GAG levels were lower than in patients with FMF, those with nephrotic syndrome, and controls. In 49 patients with FMF with a low GAG level, urinary GAG levels increased significantly with incremental increase in the colchicine dose (p<0.05). In some patients with low GAG levels, microalbuminuria was also detected. In these patients, microalbuminuria also decreased along with the increase in urinary GAG, when the colchicine dose was increased. These results suggest that in patients with FMF, monitoring urinary GAG and microalbumin levels may be important in the regulation of the colchicine dose and prevention of amyloidosis. We suggest that effective colchicine dose may be monitored by following urinary GAG levels.
9.2 Epithelial cell-derived neutrophil activator (ENA-78) levels in patients with FMF
The exact mechanism triggering acute attacks in familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is unclear. Neutrophil is the effector cell of the inflammatory response at the serozal surface.
Epithelial cell-derived neutrophil activator (ENA-78) a recently discovered chemokine, is one of the most important chemotactic cytokines for neutrophil chemotaxis. We have examined plasma ENA-78 levels in 63 patients with FMF. Thirty one patients had acute attacks and 32 patients had remission. Mean (SD) ENA-78 levels were greater in patients with acute attacks than in attack-free patients (2186.45 (1046.37) v …
Footnotes
We thank RA Wanders for the mevalonate-kinase assay.