Spinal Cord Stimulation and 30-Minute Heart Rate Variability in Refractory Angina Patients

Background: Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has proven antianginal and antiischemic effects in severe coronary artery disease patients, minimizing frequency, intensity, and duration of pain. The mechanism explaining these effects has been detected in a sympathicolytic effect of the SCS. We monitored 30-minute-long recordings of the heart rate variability (HRV) and its spectral power parameters to evaluate the influence of SCS on the sympathetic/parasympathetic balance .
Methods and Results: Eight patients underwent HRV recordings in controlled environmental conditions. The patients were seated in a relaxed position and isolated from external contacts. During three consecutive 30-minute periods, the SCS was programmed, in a randomized fashion, to stimulate at a level generating paresthesias (ON), at a subliminal level (SUB, amplitude 80% of ON), or switched off (OFF). The low-frequency/high-frequency ratio during stimulation (ON) was significantly lower compared to that found while the SCS was turned OFF (0.54, 0.35–1.04 vs 1.21, 0.80–2.48; P = 0.036). The stimulation resulted in a median 52% (33–65%) reduction of the sympathetic activity compared to basal (ON vs OFF, P = 0.049).
Conclusion: No difference emerged instead comparing OFF versus SUB (P = 0.575). The stimulation effect was not influenced by the randomized sequence. Thirty-minute SCS significantly influenced the sympathetic/parasympathetic balance reducing sympathetic modulation.     

Transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor production in human growth factor dependent M-07e cells

Summary. Human myeloid leukaemia cell lines have been shown to differentiate into distinct cell lineages in vitro in response to several differentiation-inducing agents. A human eosinophilic leukaemia cell line, EoL-1, has been shown to differentiate into mature eosinophilic granulocytes by treatment with the culture supernatant of a human T-cell line, HIL-3. In this study we have studied whether the EoL-1 cell line has potential to differentiate into cell lineage other than eosinophils. We found that EoL-1 cells cultured in the presence of tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α (10u/ml) and interferon (IFN)-γ (1000u/ml) for 2–4d differentiated into macrophage-like cells in morphology, and expressed CD14 antigen on their cell surface. It is possible that the small subpopulation of EoL-1 cells which contains non-specific esterase (NSE) activity may be preferentially differentiated by TNF-α and IFN-γ. To clarify this issue, we have cloned the EoL-1 cell line and obtained NSE negative and positive sublines. Both EoL-1 sublines differentiated into monocyte/ macrophage-like cells, because: (a) EoL-1 sublines were induced to express CD14 antigen, and (b) they attached firmly to the plastic wells; (c) after differentiation they became strongly positive for NSE staining, and secreted TNF-α in response to the stimulation with lipopolysaccharide; and (d) they exhibited potent phagocytic activity. Therefore, we found that the EoL-1 cell line has the ability to differentiate not only into mature eosinophilic cells but also into monocyte/macrophage cell lineage, suggesting that EoL-1 cells represent immature cells with ability to differentiate into multiple cell lineages.