This study confirms that GFAP and S100B levels in serum are adjuncts to the assessment of brain damage after TBI and may enhance prognostication when combined with clinical variables.

Dendritic cells (DC) are the professional antigen presenting cells of the immune system. Therefore, several clinical studies have been initiated in which tumor antigen-loaded DC are used as a vaccine to boost an immune response against malignant tumors in patients with cancer. A prerequisite for DC used in these vaccination studies is not only that they are grown under "Good Manufacturing Practice" but equally important that they retain their functional properties. In an extensive study, various conditions were tested to optimize the maturation and yield of DC grown for clinical use. DC grown in XVIVO-15 medium supplemented with 5% HS yielded the best results, morphologically and phenotypically. Mature DC expressed significant amounts of mature DC markers (CD83) and the costimulatory molecules CD80 and CD86. It was shown that mature and immature DC can be frozen and retain their phenotype and function after thawing. These clinical grade DC secreted high levels of the chemokines dendritic cell chemokine 1 (DC-CK1), interleukin-8 (IL-8), macrophage-derived chemokine (MDC), and thymus and activation-regulated chemokine (TARC). This implicates that these DC can attract naïve T and B cells as well as natural killer cells and memory T cells. Finally, to test their migratory capacity in vivo, (111)In-labeled DC were injected into tumor-free lymph nodes of patients with melanoma. Autoradiographic analysis of the dissected lymph nodes indicated that these DC could migrate into the T cell area of adjacent lymph nodes. In conclusion, a culture procedure was established to generate large numbers of monocyte-derived immature and mature DC that retain their morphologic, phenotypic, and functional characteristics in vitro and can be visualized in situ.

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BackgroundCardiovascular disease is one of the major causes of death worldwide.Assessing the risk for cardiovascular disease is an important aspect in clinical decision making and setting a therapeutic strategy, and the use of serological biomarkers may improve this. Despite an overwhelming number of studies and meta-analyses on biomarkers and cardiovascular disease, there are no comprehensive studies comparing the relevance of each biomarker. We performed a systematic review of meta-analyses on levels of serological biomarkers for atherothrombosis to compare the relevance of the most commonly studied biomarkers.Methods and FindingsMedline and Embase were screened on search terms that were related to “arterial ischemic events” and “meta-analyses”. The meta-analyses were sorted by patient groups without pre-existing cardiovascular disease, with cardiovascular disease and heterogeneous groups concerning general populations, groups with and without cardiovascular disease, or miscellaneous. These were subsequently sorted by end-point for cardiovascular disease or stroke and summarized in tables. We have identified 85 relevant full text articles, with 214 meta-analyses. Markers for primary cardiovascular events include, from high to low result: C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, the apolipoprotein A/apolipoprotein B ratio, high density lipoprotein, and vitamin D. Markers for secondary cardiovascular events include, from high to low result: cardiac troponins I and T, C-reactive protein, serum creatinine, and cystatin C. For primary stroke, fibrinogen and serum uric acid are strong risk markers. Limitations reside in that there is no acknowledged search strategy for prognostic studies or meta-analyses.ConclusionsFor primary cardiovascular events, markers with strong predictive potential are mainly associated with lipids. For secondary cardiovascular events, markers are more associated with ischemia. Fibrinogen is a strong predictor for primary stroke.