1983: Familial autoimmunity: twenty years later. (Autoimmunity or Babesiosis>?)

CaliforniaLyme · medicine forum Guru Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 2066

1: J Clin Lab Immunol. 1983 Jun;11(2):105-11. Related Articles, Links

Familial autoimmunity: twenty years later.

Olanoff LS, Fundenberg HH.

This report details a follow-up clinical and serological study of a
patient with autoimmune hemolytic anemia and his family with multiple
autoimmune related phenomena, originally reported in 1964. Clinical
features thought to be related to the demonstration of various organ
specific autoantibodies in the patient and in family members include
hemolytic anemia, thyrotoxicosis, myocarditis, ulcerative colitis,
polyarteritis nodosa and renal disease. The proband in this study
demonstrates an abnormality of cellular immune function with a
generalized decrease in T cell rosette formation and a large decrease
in a subpopulation of T cells which may include suppressor T
lymphocytes; this finding is consistent with the theory that autoimmune
disease arises as an abnormality in the regulation of autoantibody
production by B lymphocytes due to a decrease in suppressor T cell
function. The results of our follow-up study of this patient and his
family with diseases of immunological aberration strongly support the
need for close monitoring of such patients and their family members,
since early serological evidence of organ specific autoantibodies may
be an initial signal of later target organ damage.

Publication Types:
Case Reports

PMID: 6603518 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

overman74@hotmail.com · medicine forum Guru Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Posts: 442

If it wasn't for autoimmunity, they would have to say "we don't know"
more often. How handy this is. And what causes autoimmunity? Why
genetics of course. These losers have bad genes.

I wonder if peptic ulcers were ever ascribed to autoimmunity (before
Marshall), and if not, why not.

A little late for these poor people to find out they really had a
treatable tickborne disease, if that's what it was.

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