Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is an autosomal recessive, inherited autoinflammatory disease characterized by recurrent, self-limited attacks of fever and inflammation of serosal surfaces. There is an explosion of the data regarding inflammatory markers in FMF and clinical effects of chronic inflammation on the disease presentation. Vitamin D (vit D) is the common denomination of a group of sterols with a crucial role in phospho-calcium metabolism. There are some data about the importance of vit D in the initiation and propogation of a range of autoimmune diseases. The aim of the present study was to determine whether vit D deficiency is present in patients with FMF compared with healthy individuals. The study group included 99 patients with diagnosis of FMF attended to our outpatient Rheumatology and Nephrology Clinics of Atatürk Education and Research Hospital. The control group comprised 51 age- and sex-matched healthy people selected from hospital staff. Serum baseline 25-hydroxy vit D levels were measured by HPLC method using an Agilent 1100 Liquid Chromatograph. We found significantly lower serum 25-hydroxy vit D levels among FMF patients compared with matched controls and a high prevalence of vit D deficiency. This study demonstrated that vit D deficiency is frequent in patients with FMF than the healthy controls. It is convenient to look for vit D deficiency and to correct vit D nutritional status in FMF patients.

Proinflammatory cytokines, IL-1beta in particular, might be associated with sleep complaints in HD patients. OSAS is not uncommon in HD patients with sleep-related complaints and sleep architecture does not appear to be effected by the HD procedure itself.

Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is an autosomal recessive autoimmune disorder characterized by recurrent bouts of fever and serosal inflammation. FMF may be complicated by AA-type amyloidosis, worsening the prognosis, with associated renal failure in some patients. Complication rate varies with race, being as high as 60% in Turks and as low as 2% in Armenians. In a few cases of patients with FMF (phenotype 2), amyloid nephropathy may be the presenting manifestation. This study included 420 patients who were admitted to the Nephrology and Rheumatology Departments of Atatürk Education and Research Hospital with unexplained proteinuria/nephrotic syndrome. The initial screening test for amyloidosis was the presence of significant proteinuria (300 mg/24 h). All MEFV gene exons were screened for causative mutations by direct DNA sequencing to check for any mutations. There were 22 phenotype 2 FMF patients with 27 allelic variants. The most prevalent allelic variants were M694V (10/27, 37%) and E148Q (7/27, 26%). Phenotype 2 FMF is not as rare as it was thought before; this should be kept in mind for all patients with unexplained proteinuria and/or acute phase response in high-risk ethnic groups for FMF.

Istanbul Leprosy Hospital. Seven hundred and eleven leprosy patients were evaluated according to their age, gender and type of disease and disability according to the WHO disability grading system (1980). There were 527 males (74'2%) and 184 females (25 '8%) in the group. The average age was 50·0 ± 13·5 years and the average duration of disease was 25·9 ± 13·2 years. Six hundred and seventy-eight patients (95'4%) were in borderline (BL) and lepromatous (LL) leprosy.The extent of disabilities was very high in 711 leprosy patients. It was found that 539 of the patients (75'8%) had eye disabilities, 511 of them (7 1'8%) had hand disabilities, 52 1 of them (73'3%) had foot disabilities.The most frequent eye, hand and foot disabilities were a decrease of vision (52'7), acute or chronic iridocyclitis (48'8%), slightly-marked corneal sensory loss (43'2%), mobile claw hand (33'3%), palmar insensitivity (16'3%), plantar ulcer (37'2%) and plantar insensitivity (19'8%).Eye deformities were the most common of the three affected areas in this study.

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