No abstract

These results confirm the high prevalence of adverse reactions to foods in diarrheic irritable bowel syndrome and the usefulness of cromolyn sodium treatment in these patients.

Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that Parietaria is more important than Olea and Gramineae as a risk for developing non-specific bronchial hyperresponsiveness. On the whole, present observations provide further evidence that there is an interrelationship of allergen kind, total serum IgE, eosinophil and bronchial hyperresponsiveness suggesting that they may play a role in the development of bronchial asthma in rhinitis patients.

Leishmaniasis represents a severe, increasing, public health problem. The perspective of its control is highly dependent on research progress, on therapeutic manipulations of the immune system, and on vaccine development. There is a correlation between the clinical outcome of Leishmania infection and the cytokine response profile. While a protective immune response against Leishmania has been clearly identified to be related to the influence of a type-l response and IFN-y production, the precise role of T helper (TH) 2 cytokines in non-healing infections requires further exploration. IL-4 and IL-13 (TH2 cytokines) can promote disease progression in cutaneous leishmaniasis, whereas IL-4 would appear to enhance protective type-l responses in visceral leishmaniasis. Thus, the THlITH2 paradigm of resistance/ susceptibility to intracellular parasites is probably an oversimplification of a more complicated network of regulatory/counter regulatory interactions. Moreover, the presence of antigen specific regulatory T cell subsets may provide an environment that contributes to the balance between THI and T H2 cells. Finally, the involvement of CD8+ T cells has been described, but the modality of their function in this kind of infection has not been so far elucidated.Leishmaniasis represents a severe, increasing public health problem (1-2). Moreover, many of the 50 million people who travel from industrialized to developing countries each year report some infective illness associated with their travel, included leishmaniasis, which is endemic in the areas of tropics, subtropics, and southern Europe (3). The perspective of control is still highly dependent on research progresses, to obtain better tools and more cost-effective strategy for vector control and case management, through therapeutic manipulations of the immune system, and vaccine development (4).Leishmaniasis comprises a group of diseases caused by protozoan parasites of the Leishmania genus. Leishmaniasis is characterized by different clinical manifestations, which are dependent not only on host genetic control, but also on the infecting species, which to date are more than 20 (5).The parasites which cause the various forms of leishmaniasis in humans are classified in the subgenus Leishmania (L.) or Viannia (V. (V.) braziliensis, Leishmania (V.) guyanensis, Leishmania (V.) lainsoni, Leishmania (V.) naiffi, Leishmania (V.) panamensis, Leishmania (v.)