The eye can become involved in immune-mediated diseases that affect it alone or as part of a multi-organ disease process. Much immunological attention has been focused on other organs affected by these processes and the subject of the immunology of eye diseases is a relatively new one. Many of these diseases that involve the eye are not life-threatening but can result in devastat- ing loss of sight that if bilateral, will have major effects on the patient's life. Systemic immunological investigations are generally unhelpful in these patients and one of the major problems in this field has...

This volume has been written specifically for the practising clinician. All aspects of clinical transplantation have expanded enormously in recent years, but many of the doctors involved have received little or no tuition in immunology as medical students. The various chapters, written by physicians, surgeons, pathologists and immunologists present many of the currently important issues in transplantation and demonstrate that a basic undertaking of immunology is now essential in many areas of clinical practice. Perhaps this book will not only produce an increasing awareness of immunological...

Rapid advances continue to be made in all areas of immunology, not least the biology of the immunoglobulins. This knowledge has resulted in a better understanding of antibody responses and helped to clarify pathogenic mechanisms in many diseases, particularly autoimmune and allergic diseases, as well as expand our comprehension of antibody deficiency diseases and mechanisms in therapeutic immunization. In addition, the recognition that diverse disease states may result in abnormalities of the amount of immunoglobulins in body fluids has resulted in the use of immunoglobulin assays for disease...

Nineteen eighty-six is a most appropriate year in which to be writing about developments in the organ-specific, autoimmune endocrine diseases. It celebrates the publication 30 years ago in 1956 of the classic papers of Roitt and Doniach and their co-workers I , and of Rose and Witebsky2 and Adams 3 and Purves . These three sets of fundamental observations provided the initial building blocks upon which much of what has been established in the field in the last 30 years was built. No publication of this nature on endocrine autoimmune disease can cover every aspect of the subject. I have chosen...

The neuromuscular diseases comprise the disorders of peripheral nerve, neuromuscular junction, and muscle (Figure 1). This book addresses the immunologically mediated neuromuscular diseases, including Guillain-Barre syndrome and other autoimmune neuropathies, the Lambert-Eaton myas thenic syndrome, myasthenia gravis, and the autoimmune diseases of muscle. Two chapters are devoted to the vasculitis and human immunodeficiency virus-mediated neuromuscular diseases. The experimental models of neuritis and myasthenia gravis are addressed in separate chapters. An introductory chapter provides a...