These findings suggest that eotaxin and IL-5 are strongly associated with the tissue eosinophilia of BP. Therapies which aim to inhibit production of eotaxin and IL-5 may improve the inflammation and blister formation in BP.

A 70-year-old womanwith rheumatoid arthritis was admitted to our hospital because of gastric ulcers. Abdominal echography incidentally revealed that the patient' s gallbladder was multiseptate, an extremely rare anomaly. The diagnosis was confirmed by endoscopic retrograde cholangiography. This is the 26th case of multiseptate gallbladder in the world literature, but the patient is the oldest yet recorded with this condition. Furthermore, unlike most patients with multiseptate gallbladder, she had no biliary symptomswith concomitant cholelithiasis.

Recently, telomerase activity has been demonstrated in a large number of malignant tumors whereas its activity is not detected in most normal somatic cells suggesting its role in the immortalization process. Here we report the first investigation of telomerase activity in a case of gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma. Elevated telomerase activity was detected in biopsy specimens of the lymphoma.After eradication of Helicobacter pylori, the level of telomerase activity returned to normal with histological regression of the lymphoma.The telomerase activity was associated with the disease activity of the gastric MALT lymphomaafter eradication therapy in the present case. (Internal Medicine 39: 300-304, 2000)

The activities of both total and Oligomycin-sensitive ATPase in lymphocytes from patients with gastrointestinal tract (GI) carcinomas in different Karnofsky performance status (KPS) were determined to investigate whether or not the changes of these enzyme activities were correlated to those of the immune responsiveness of the patients. In the patients whose KPS indicated more than 50%, the mean value of the total ATPase activity in lymphocytes tended to increase slightly as compared with that determined in the control subjects, but the mean value of the Oligomycin-sensitive ATPase activity in lymphocytes tended to decrease slightly as compared with that determined in the control subjects. In the patients whose KPS indicated less than 30%, the mean values of the activities of both total and Oligomycin-sensitive ATPase in lymphocytes tended to decrease remarkably as compared with those determined in the control subjects. The ATPase activities in lymphocytes were suggested to be useful measures to the immune responsiveness of the patients with GI carcinomas.

No abstract