Review article: the effects of antitumour necrosis factor-α on bone metabolism in inflammatory bowel disease

Fetal and Neonatal Illnesses Caused or Influenced by Maternal Transplacental IgG and/or Therapeutic Antibodies Applied During Pregnancy

The human fetus is protected by the mother’s antibodies. At the end of the pregnancy, the concentration of maternal antibodies is higher in the cord blood, than in the maternal circulation. Simultaneously, the immune system of the fetus begins to work and from the second trimester, fetal IgM is produced by the fetal immune system specific to microorganisms and antigens passing the maternal-fetal barrier. The same time the fetal immune system has to cope and develop tolerance and T_REG cells to the maternal microchimeric cells, latent virus-carrier maternal cells and microorganisms transported through the maternal-fetal barrier.

The maternal phenotypic inheritance may hide risks for the newborn, too. Antibody mediated enhancement results in dengue shock syndrome in the first 8 month of age of the baby.

A series of pathologic maternal antibodies may elicit neonatal illnesses upon birth usually recovering during the first months of the life of the offspring. Certain antibodies, however, may impair the fetal or neonatal tissues or organs resulting prolonged recovery or initiating prolonged pathological processes of the children.

The importance of maternal anti-idiotypic antibodies are believed to prime the fetal immune system with epitopes of etiologic agents infected the mother during her whole life before pregnancy and delivery.

The chemotherapeutical and biological substances used for the therapy of the mother will be transcytosed into the fetal body during the last two trimesters of pregnancy. The long series of the therapeutic monoclonal antibodies and conjugates has not been tested systematically yet. The available data are summarised in this chapter.

The innate immunity plays an important role in fetal defence. The concentration of interferon is relative high in the placenta. This is probably one reason, why the therapeutic interferon treatment of the mother does not impair the fetal development.

Progress in research of biological activity markers for inflammatory bowel disease

The incidence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been increasing in recent years. The clinical manifestations of IBD are complicated, and both intestinal and extraintestinal symptoms may develop. Due to the lack of specific index, IBD is easy to be misdiagnosed, and evaluating disease activity is more difficult. Radiology, endoscopic and histological biopsy for diagnosis are expensive. Currently, there is an urgent need of a simple, noninvasive, sensitive, economic, and highly specific method for diagnosis of IBD. Biological activity markers may meet this demand. In this paper, the clinical applicability of biological activity markers, which come from both ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), in identifying the presence or extent of inflammatory response, is reviewed.