Effect of Meperidine on Equine Blood Histamine, Tryptase, and Immunoglobulin-E Concentrations

Objectives: To evaluate changes in immunological parameters following subcutaneous (SC) and intramuscular (IM) administration of meperidine in horses through quantitative analysis of plasma tryptase, histamine, and IgE levels.Methods: Six adult horses were enrolled in a prospective randomized crossover design. Horses were administered one treatment per day, with a seven day washout period: (a) meperidine 1 mg/kg IM, saline 6 mL SC; (b) saline 6 mL IM, meperidine 1 mg/kg SC; (c) saline 6 mL SC, saline 6 mL IM. Blood samples were obtained for plasmatic histamine (baseline, 5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 min) via LC-MS/MS and plasmatic tryptase (baseline, 15, 30, 60, 120, and 240 min) quantification with enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assays. Serum immunoglobulin E (IgE) concentrations prior to any meperidine treatment and 7–14 days following the first meperidine treatment were evaluated with enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assays. Histamine and tryptase concentrations were evaluated with a mixed-effect analysis of variance. The levels of IgE at baseline (before the administration of the first dose of meperidine) were compared with the IgE values at 60 min following the second meperidine administration with the Paired t test. Biopsies of localized injection site reactions from subcutaneous meperidine administration were collected from two horses.Results: No statistically significant elevations from baseline in histamine (p = 0.595), tryptase (p = 0.836), or IgE (p = 0.844) were found in any of the horses in this study. There were no differences between treatment groups. Administration of SC meperidine caused a localized vasculitis and thrombosis with regional edema and hemorrhage.Conclusion: No evidence of anaphylactoid or anaphylactic type reactions occurred following IM or SC meperidine administration.

ALLERGIC RHINITIS AND ASTHMA CO-MORBIDITY

Introduction: The combination of asthma and allergic rhinitis can affect the mutual encumbrance to which other pathogenetic mechanisms join, which worsen the course of both diseases. The aim of work is to analyze the features of the genotype and phenotype in patients with a co-morbidity of asthma and allergic rhinitis. Materials and methods: In order to detect the features of asthma and allergic rhinitis, 115 patients were examined. Patients were divided into two groups: the first included 58 patients with allergic asthma and allergic rhinitis co-morbidity, the second – 57 patients with non-allergic asthma morbidity. Results: For the group of patients with allergic asthma with concomitant allergic rhinitis, the first manifestation of allergy in childhood is characteristic (allergic rhinitis, hay fever, atopic dermatitis). For this group of patients characterized by a heavy family allergic history. Symptoms of allergic rhinitis aggravate the course of asthma. Characteristic correlation of symptoms of allergic rhinitis with distal obstruction and pronounced lability of bronchi. In these patients, the total increase in IgE and blood eosinophilia, in 1,5 times increased blood histamine and the level of exhaled NO2 have been increased. Also, asthma control with concomitant allergic rhinitis was significantly worse than in an isolated asthma group (p <0.05). Conclusion: The obtained data allow to distinguishing the phenotype of patients with asthma and allergic rhinitis co-morbidity.

Histamine Blood Concentration in Ischemic Heart Disease Patients

The aim of this study was to investigate histamine blood concentration in subjects suffering from different types of ischemic heart diseases during the period of eight days. Our results showed that the histamine blood level was associated with different types of ischemic heart diseases. The blood histamine level in all investigated patients was significantly higher when compared to control subjects (44.87 ± 1.09 ng mL−1), indicating the increase of histamine release in patients suffering from coronary diseases. In patients suffering from ACS-UA and ACS-STEMI, the second day peak of histamine level occurs (90.85 ± 6.34 ng mL−1and 121.7 ± 6.34 ng mL−1, resp.) probably as the reperfusion event. Furthermore, our data suggest that histamine can be additional parameter of myocardial ischemia along with cardiac specific enzymes and may prove to be an excellent single prognostic marker for multitude of ischemic heart diseases.

Histamine Monitoring in Patients with CML during Treatment with Imatinib: Comparison to Monitoring by Cytogenetics and BCR/ABL.

The tyrosine kinase inhibitor STI571=imatinib is highly effective in the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Although most patients (pts) show a complete cytogentic response (CCR) to this tyrosine kinase inhibitor, drug resistance may occur. Therefore, monitoring of minimal residual disease (MRD) during imatinib-therapy is of clinical importance. However, most MRD-parameters require special technology and equipment and are expensive. We found that histamine levels are highly upregulated at diagnosis in pts with CML (controls, n=39: median, 55.2 ng/ml, range, 19.1–108 ng/ml vs CML, n=44: median, 5,684.5 ng/ml, range, 181–47,816 ng/ml; p&lt;0.0005) and correlate with the presence of basophils (R=0.87). To define the value of whole blood histamine as a marker of MRD in CML, histamine levels were determined serially by RIA before and during treatment with imatinib in 80 pts with CML (chronic phase, CP, n=70; accelerated phase, AP, n=10). Of the pts with CML-CP, 29 were previously untreated, whereas 41 pts had received interferon-alpha or a bone marrow transplant prior to imatinib. From the 10 pts with CML-AP, 3 had received previous interferon-alpha. Imatinib was given at a dose of 400 mg/day (CML-CP) or 600 mg/day (CML-AP and CP pts who did not respond adequately to 400 mg/day) orally. The rate of complete cytogenetic response (CCR) amounted to 77.6%, the rate of major cytogenetic response was 80%. Blood histamine levels decreased significantly in CML pts during treatment with imatinib, and returned to normal levels in all pts with CCR. In most pts, loss of CCR was accompanied or was preceded by a recurrent increase in histamine as well as an increase in BCR/ABL determined by light cycler-based real time PCR. The pts who did not enter CCR exhibited higher histamine levels and higher levels of BCR/ABL compared to those with continuous CCR (p&lt;0.05). Unexpectedly, whereas the numbers of basophils were found to correlate well with histamine levels during therapy with imatinib (R=0.96), no correlation was found between histamine and Ph+ metaphases (R=0.34) or histamine and percentage of BCR/ABL (R=0.14), suggesting that basophil-histamine is an independent variable. Basophil-histamine should thus be considered as a simple and reliable additional marker to monitor MRD in pts with CML.