A case of IgA multiple myeloma: Nutritional perspective in diagnostic testing

A 64-year-old security guard and longstanding known hypertensive presented with hypertensive heart disease (HHD), weight loss, an enlarged prostate, and a spontaneously fractured rib. Malignancy of the prostate with possible metastases to the ribs was strongly suspected. Biochemical profiling revealed a paraprotein. Other biochemical and hematological correlates that were on hand before serum protein electrophoresis were rather atypical. Paraprotein studies by immunofixation revealed IgA myelomatosis. Unlike previous reports from Caucasians there was normocalcaemia, normal protein level, microcytic hypochromia, low MCHC, cholesterol level at the lower limit of the reference range and normal urea level (in the face of markedly raised creatinine level). Nutritional modulation of the classical laboratory features of this disease may account for the fairly atypical laboratory picture. The need to appreciate the influence of nutritional status on the laboratory (especially biochemical) features of a disease and thus interpretation of diagnostic tests appears of exceptional current importance, given the widening gap in socioeconomic status and the level of poverty between the resource poor and developed countries from which the classical, clinical and laboratory features of most diseases were first described. This case report reminds of the need not only to recognize theoretically the impact of nutritional status on the laboratory characteristics of a disease but of the practical application of the nutritional perspective in the interpretation of diagnostic investigations, especially in nutritionally disadvantaged communities.     

Clinical usefulness of alterations in sialic acid,sialyl transferase and sialoproteins in breast cancer

Sialic acid, the end moieties of the carbohydrate chains are biologically important and essential for functions of glycoconjugates and are reported to be altered in cancer patients. Two hundred and twenty five breast cancer (BC) patients, 100 patients with benign breast disease (BBD) and 100 healthy females (controls) were enrolled for the study. Eight hundred and twenty four follow-up samples of 225 breast carcinoma patients were also evaluated. The association of sialic acid forms, sialyltransferase and α-2–6 sialoproteins levels with presence and extent as well as prognosis of breast carcinoma was studied. Serum sialic acid forms and sialyltransferase revealed significantly elevated levels among untreated breast cancer patients as compared to the controls, patients with BBD as well as cancer patients in remission. Non-responders showed comparable levels of the markers with those found in breast cancer patients at the time of diagnosis. Higher levels of sialic acid forms at diagnosis were associated with poor prognosis. A positive correlation between serum levels of different forms of sialic acids and extent of malignant disease was observed. The changes in serum proteins with terminal α-2–6 sialic acid correlated well with alterations in the levels of sialic acid forms and sialyltransferase. Malignant tissues showed elevated levels of sialic acid and sialyltransferase as compared to surrounding normal tissues. The results suggested potential utility of these markers in evaluation of clinical outcome.     

Serum adenosine deaminase, 5′ nucleotidase and malondialdehyde in acute infective hepatitis

Serum adenosine deaminase (ADA), 5′ nucleotidase (5′NT) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were estimated in patients with acute infective hepatitis (AIH) along with the routine parameters of liver disease. Present study is done to evaluate these special parameters in patients with clinical history of AIH and to assess the utility of these parameters as diagnostic/ prognostic indices of liver function and to correlate special parameters with routine live function tests (LFT). ADA, 5′NT and MDA along with routine LFT was estimated in 25 patients with AIH and 25 samples from healthy voluntary blood donars served as the control group. Routine LFT was estimated by standard clinical chemistry procedures on dade behring analyser and ADA, 5′NT and MDA were estimated by berthlot reaction, fiske and subbarao method and thiobarbituric acid method respectively. Statistical analysis showed that serum ADA, 5′NT and MDA were significantly higher in patients as compared with the controls. There was a significant positive correlation between ADA and total bilirubin and MDA and total bilirubin. Hence we can conclude that these tests would be more sensitive to diagnose the patients with AIH and that the raised bilirubin levels could be looked upon, as a protective mechanism which the liver has evolved in order to combat oxidative stress.     

Zinc: what is its role in biology?

Zinc is as common as iron in biology. It is usually thought to be a trace element required only for catalysis. Here it is shown that the role of zinc is much more fundamental not only in catalysis but in inhibitory control. There may well be several such control elements—calcium, iron, manganese, magnesium, and zinc.     

Induction of diabetes by Streptozotocin in rats

The objective of this study is to induce experimental diabetes mellitus by Streptozotocin in normal adult Wistar rats via comparison of changes in body weight, consumption of food and water, volume of urine and levels of glucose, insulin and C-peptide in serum, between normal and diabetic rats. Intra-venous injection of 60mg/kg dose of Streptozotocin in adult wistar rats, makes pancreas swell and at last causes degeneration in Langerhans islet beta cells and induces experimental diabetes mellitus in the 2–4 days. Induction of experimental diabetes mellitus is indeed the first step in the plan of purification of pancreatic Langerhans islet cells of normal rats for transplanting under the testis subcutaneous of experimentally induced diabetic rats. Streptozotocin induces one type of diabetes which is similar to diabetes mellitus with non-ketosis hyperglycemia in some animal species. For induction of experimental diabetes in male adult rats weighted 250–300 grams (75–90 days), 60mg/kg of Streptozotocin was injected intravenously. Three days after degeneration of beta cells, diabetes was induced in all animals. The diabetic and normal animals were kept in the metabolic cages separately and their body weight, consumption of food and water, urine volume, the levels of serum glucose, insulin and C-peptide quantities in all animals were measured and then these quantities were compared. For a microscopic study of degeneration of Langerhans islet beta cells of diabetic rats, sampling from pancreas tissue of diabetic and normal rats, staining and comparison between them, were done. Induction of diabetes with Streptozotocin decreases Nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide (NAD) in pancreas islet beta cells and causes histopathological effects in beta cells which probably intermediates induction of diabetes. In this study, we used Streptozotocin for our experiments in induction of experimental diabetes mellitus. After Induction of diabetes, consumption of food and water, volume of urine and glucose increased in the diabetic animals in comparison with normal animals, but the weight of body and the volume of insulin and C-peptide decreased in the diabetic animals. Sampling and staining of pancreas tissue of diabetic and normal rats showed that the Langerhans islet beta cells of diabetic rats have been clearly degenerated. In three days, Streptozotocin makes pancreas swell and at last causes degeneration in Langerhans islet beta cells and induces experimental diabetes. It also changes normal metabolism in diabetic rats in comparison with normal rats. Consumption of water and food, volume of urine, serum glucose increases in diabetic animals in comparison with normal rats but the levels of serum insulin, C-peptide and body weight decreases.     

The correlation between pertinence and rate of citation duplication in multidatabase searches.

The rate of citation duplication was examined in three databases: MEDLINE, BIOSIS, and LIFE SCIENCES COLLECTION. Duplicate citations were found to be more pertinent than unique citations. The duplicate citations came from a highly compact literature, while those from a single database were very widely scattered. The pertinent duplicated citations were more likely to be retrieved in searches that had more terms overall, had a higher percentage of thesaurus terms, and had terms which appeared in both title and abstract. These results suggest that the rate of duplication of citations in multidatabase searches may be used to rank output according to probable pertinence.     

Mathematical methods for modelling price fluctuations of financial times series

Statistical and Fourier analysis methods of time series representing fluctuations of stock market in general and Indian stock markets in particular are well known. This work is motivated by a recent paper by Guharay [Operations Research and Financial Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, preprint, 2002] where he has studied trends in the S & P 500 for various time periods using wavelet tools. Our paper deals with a few Indian and Saudi stock prices and return fluctuation for a certain period of time. The main objective of the analysis is to understand the dynamics of the Indian and Saudi stock markets. We look for similarities, point of abrupt changes, normalized data, return, volatility, graph, pure and noise part, correlation lengths, and signal-to-noise ratio.