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The effects of Sulglycotide were evaluated in a pilot study of activeH. pylori+ atrophic gastritis. Ten informed patients (mean age 51±13 years) entered a double-blind study. Five received Sulglycotide 400 mg three times a day for one year, the other 5, placebo. At 0, 30, 90, 270, and 360 days of treatment, patients underwent endoscopic examinations with multiple biopsics. Morphometric studies (number of inflammatory cells and percent gland volume), morphologic studies (according to the Sydney system), and flow cytofluorimetry were performed in all cases. Compared to findings in the placebo group, patients treated with Sulglycotide showed a reduced number of inflammatory cells and an increase in gland volume 120 days after treatment. While the difference was not statistically significant, the trend was confirmed by the morphologic patterns. Flow cytofluorimetry revealed an increase in the percentage of cells in the G2 phase (full maturation) and a parallel drop in the S phase (premitotic synthesis) in the Sulglycotide group only in the first three months. These data would appear to indicate an acceleration of gastric epithelial cell maturation and a decrease in the inflammatory infiltrate under the effect of Sulglycotide.

Antineoplastic agents are known to induce differential cytotoxic and cytostatic effects throughout the cell cycle. Many drugs have greater toxicity for cycling cells and act selectively at one or more phases of the cycle and may cause partial synchrony of surviving cells. However, these observations have been generally carried out on in vitro systems only and present a variety of complexities and pitfalls. Furthermore, human tumours are often characterized by a relatively low fraction of proliferating cells and present a large cellular heterogeneity as far as their cytogenetic, cytokinetic, and clonogenic features and their responses to drugs are concerned. Therefore, resistance to chemotherapy is due to various factors characterizing, in some instances, each individual tumour. In spite of the advent of technological advances such as flow cytometry, it is still difficult to design kinetic-orientated therapies especially for the treatment of solid tumours. Consequently, it is also difficult to design protocols based on cell cycle effective drugs. The possibility remains, at least for the moment, to stratify tumours according to their cellular heterogeneity. Different protocols could then be assigned to classes of tumours. Such an approach could be completed by further advances in the cellular monitoring of individual tumours.

A case of non-producer multiple myeloma (MM) is described and compared with the previous reports. Some recurrent clinical traits seem to characterize this disease. It is interesting that reported cases seem to show a low aggressivity. Some biological problems connected with this form of disease are discussed.

Abstract: The present study was performed to improve early lung cancer diagnosis in bronchial washing fluid, thereby increasing the diagnostic sensitivity of bronchoscopy by means of high-resolution flow cytometry (FC). We combined dual-parameter DNA/protein FC and conventional cytology in bronchial washing fluid samples from 112 patients with neoplastic and non-neoplastic lung diseases and found 43% of histologically confirmed tumor cases to be cytologically positive; 63% of the tumor samples were aneuploid, 52% of the aneuploid cases were cytologically positive and 48% were negative. In the negative cases, FC was an independent diagnostic factor. In 32% of the cases, FC also failed to detect abnormalities. However, the combination of both techniques increased the sensitivity in detecting neoplastic cells to 73%. Furthermore, simultaneous DNA/protein analysis allowed the recognition of aneuploid cell lines not detectable by single DNA measurement. Identification of aneuploid subpopulations by dual-parameter analysis in cytologically negative one-parameter FC “diploid” samples assumes an important diagnostic value. Dual-parameter DNA/protein FC is a valuable technique that increases the diagnostic yield of bronchoscopy with no risk for the patient and a low additional cost.

The prognostic value of DNA ploidy status was evaluated prospectively in 70 patients with colorectal carcinoma. Cellular DNA content was measured by flow cytometry from fresh specimens with multiple site sampling. Seventy-five percent of cases exhibited a DNA aneuploid pattern. In a univariate analysis, DNA ploidy status showed a statistically significant correlation with survival (p<0.05), weaker than Dukes' stage (p<0.001). No correlation was observed between survival and presence of multiple DNA stemlines. In a multivariate analysis. Dukes' stage was the strongest prognostic indicator (p=0.01) while DNA ploidy status did not show an independent prognostic value. It is concluded that DNA ploidy status is associated with pathological features of aggressive malignancy, but it does not have a determinant role in predicting survival.