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Purpose: To report the prevalence of anticardiolipin antibodies in patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) having high-risk criteria (HRC)., Methods: Diabetic patients having PDR with HRC and diabetics free of retinopathy were compared for the presence of anticardiolipin antibodies., Results: Among the 34 patients, 6 (17.7%) of diabetics having PDR with HRC were positive for anticardiolipin antibodies. There was no significant association of aCL antibodies with sex or type of diabetes. Using Pearson's correlation test, no significant associations of aCL antibodies with duration of diabetes or age of patients were found. All patients who were positive for anticardiolipin antibodies had PDR with HRC. The difference was statistically significant., Conclusion: Presence of anticardiolipin antibodies may represent an additional risk factor for PDR.

The natural history and aetiogenesis of diabetic retinopathy (DR) are still not completely understood. Autoantibodies against endothelial antigens could be responsible for initiating vascular injury and could be a marker of endothelial dysfunction. In this study, the prevalence of anticardiolipin (aCL) antibodies in patients with high risk criteria proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) were determined to investigate whether aCL antibodies might be relevant to the pathogenesis of DR. We studied 34 diabetic patients, free of DR, and 36 patients with PDR with high risk criteria (HRC). aCL antibodies (IgG and IgM) were determined using ELISA technique. There was a significant prevalence of aCL antibodies in type 1 diabetics having PDR with HRC (27.8%) while it was only 6.25% of type 2 diabetics having PDR with HRC. All patients who were positive for aCL antibodies had PDR with HRC. The difference was statistically significant. These preliminary findings suggest that aCL antibodies could represent an additional risk factor for PDR acting as a link between the immunological haemostatic systems.

This study comprised 42 patients with cancer bladder, who underwent radical cystectomy. The aim of work is to determine if HLA-G is expressed on tumor cells, derived from cancer bladder. We studied HLA-G-mRNA expression using RT-PCR and HLA-G cell surface expression by immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining technique. HLA-G was expressed in 28.6 % of cancer cases as determined by PCR and on 16.7% of cases determined by IHC staining. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of IHC were 58.3%, 96% and 81.7% respectively as compared to PCR results. There was a highly significant increase in the expression of HLA-G on cancer bladder cases with metastatic prostate infiltration (P= 0.021). It is concluded that HLA-G is ectopically expressed on cancer bladder malignant cells both at molecular and protein levels. However, it is not significantly associated with histologic type, tumor grade, stage, T category, schistosomiasis and lymph node involvement.