SOJ Immunology

4

Authors: Paun I, Ionescu M, Paun M, Costin A, Vidrighin C, Florescu M, Mogos D and Costantin V

Breast cancer occurrence is increasing worldwide; however, patients under 30 years of age who present with this condition are scarce. Using as a pretext, the “chance” to encounter a case of breast cancer patient less than 30 years of age in a hospital setting, in conjunction with the relatively few data in the literature on the topic, the current paper attempts to point out some of the features of breast carcinoma occurring in this category of patients. Basically, the paper highlights a very important aspect, namely that breast carcinoma in young women is more aggressive and shows a reserved prognosis, translated as a 5-year lower survival rate and a higher percentage of relapse following therapy compared to women in perimenopause or to elderly ones.

6

Authors: Maria J. Acevedo-Calado, Marco A. Montes-Cano, Francisco Murillo-Cabezas, Ainara Madrazo-Atutxa, Salvador Toro- Llamas, Angel Luis Castaño Nunez, Jose L. Caro Oleas, Alfonso Leal-Cerro and Antonio Nunez-Roldan

The immune-inflammatory response as well as cerebral endothelial activation has been described after Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Although inflammation can have both beneficial and detrimental effects in TBI, the mechanisms underlying this dichotomy are mostly unknown. Moreover, emerging data indicates that chronic alterations produced after TBI are probably the result of systemic and persistent inflammation that activates immune response, culminating in the production of different specific auto antibodies against central nervous system antigens. In the previous study we demonstrated the production of anti-hnRNPK antibodies, belonging to Anti-Endothelial Cell Antibodies (AECA), in heart transplanted patients who developed Cardiac Allograft Vasculopathy (CAV). These antibodies could be produced in response to the vascular endothelial damage that is also present in TBI patients. In the current study, we analyse the presence of AECA by Indirect Immunofluorescence Assay (IFI) and anti-hnRNPK IgG antibodies by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) in a cohort of 19 patients who suffered TBI. We detected a significant increase in the number of patients with AECA and anti-hnRNPK antibodies after TBI. Moreover, anti-hnRNPK antibody levels were also higher during follow-up, being the values obtained after TBI significantly higher than those detected at the time of trauma (p = 0.001). We also found that AECA and anti hnRNPK antibodies were mostly present in the sera of patients with a worse outcome (p = 0.018 and p = 0.04 respectively). Taking into account, measuring these auto antibodies could be useful for evaluating endothelial injury and/or the outcome after TBI.