M. van Hagen

Defective maturation and function of antigen-presenting cells in type 1 diabetes.

Macrophages and dendritic cells are important as antigen-presenting cells in the islet autoimmune response. We report decreased maturation of dendritic cells from blood monocytes of 61 patients with type 1 diabetes compared with 31 healthy controls (medians 26 and 35%, respectively, p = 0.0005). The dendritic cells also had reduced ability to cluster (96 and 124 clusters, respectively, p = 0.0005), and to stimulate autologous and allogeneic T cells. Because optimum antigen presentation is primarily required for tolerance induction rather than for immunisation, the defective maturation and function of diabetic dendritic cells might be the basis for disturbed activation of regulatory (suppressor) T cells.

Somatostatin receptor scintigraphy in the initial staging of Hodgkin's disease

Somatostatin receptor (SS‐R) scintigraphy has been successfully used in the visualization of a variety of neuroendocrine tumours. In vitro studies have shown that SS‐Rs are present in human malignant lymphomas. We conducted a prospective study in 56 consecutive untreated patients with histologically proven Hodgkins disease (HD) and compared the results of SS‐R scintigraphy with physical and radiological examinations as initial evaluation.