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Background: Infection with hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a major cause of acute viral hepatitis in several developing countries. Although usually self-limiting and benign, the disease is particularly severe among pregnant women, with mortality rates reaching 15–20%. Methods: Immune parameters among pregnant women with acute hepatitis E (P-HEV) were investigated and compared with those in non-pregnant patients with hepatitis E (N-HEV), and healthy pregnant (PC) and non-pregnant (NPC) women. Results: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from P-HEV patients had lower lymphocyte proliferation response to phytohemagglutinin (PHA) than those in the PC and NPC groups. A positive lymphocyte proliferation response to HEV antigen (HEVAg), a mixture of eight peptides derived from HEV proteins, was observed in 7/19 (37%) P-HEV patients, 3/9 (33%) N-HEV patients and only 2/21 (10%) PC and 2/14 (14%) NPC subjects; the stimulation indices in the P-HEV group were similar to the N-HEV group and higher than the PC group. Measurement of cytokine production by PBMC in response to PHA and HEVAg showed a reduction in production of T-helper 1 (Th1) cytokines and an increase in that of Th2 cytokines in the P-HEV group. Cytokine mRNA levels showed similar changes. Conclusion: These results show the existence of a Th2 bias in pregnant women with acute hepatitis E. The role of this Th2 bias in the greater severity of hepatitis E among pregnant women needs further investigation.

BACKGROUND Bile duct brushing is the procedure of choice for the assessment of neoplasia of the biliary and pancreatic ducts. Conventional cytopathologic evaluation has been reported to have high specificity but relatively low sensitivity. Although a number of molecular studies regarding biliary tract tissue specimens have been performed, to the authors' knowledge their precise applicability to cytopathology specimens has not been critically analyzed. METHODS Bile duct brushing specimens with the cytopathologic diagnosis of “suspicious” or “positive for malignant cells” along with corresponding surgical pathology specimens demonstrating adenocarcinoma were searched for in the files of UPMC-Presbyterian Hospital for the years 1990–1996. Tumor cells from representative cytopathology and histology slides were microdissected and analyzed for loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in a panel of microsatellite markers. The results obtained from cytopathologic and surgical pathology specimens were compared. RESULTS Eight paired surgical and cytopathology cases of adenocarcinoma involving the biliary tract were identified. The fractional allelic loss (FAL) for the surgical specimens (FAL-S) ranged from 12.5–71.4% and the FAL for the cytopathology specimens (FAL-C) ranged from 25–71.4%. However, when evaluating the actual loci of LOH, the concordance rate of the surgical and cytopathology specimens ranged from 71.4–100% (mean, 88.6%). Only 3 of the 8 cases (37.5%) were found to have identical matching of the LOH loci. CONCLUSIONS Although the overall concordance rate of LOH in biliary cytology and surgical specimens by molecular analysis is relatively high, the issue of molecular tumoral heterogeneity must be considered if clinical decisions are to be based exclusively on cytopathologic analysis. Cancer (Cancer Cytopathol) 2003;99:379–84. © 2003 American Cancer Society.

l,2-Bis(4-substituted phenyl)-2-methyl ethanone (2,4-dlnitrophenyl)hydrazones and 1-naphthyl-1-(4-substituted phenyl)-methanone (2,4-dinitrophenyl)hydrazones have been synthesized and evaluated for their anti-implantation, uterotrophic, antiuterotrophic, anticancer and antimicrobial activities. Diphenolic hy-drazone (compound 6) showed maximum uterotrophic inhibition of 70 %, whereas compound 20 exhibited cytotoxicity in the range of 50–70 % against MCF-7 and ZR-75-1 human malignant breast cell lines.