Fetal cephaloceles: prenatal diagnosis and course of pregnancy in 65 consecutive cases.

Purpose: To scrutinize the characteristics of all cases with antenatally established diagnosis of cephalocele in two tertiary referral centers.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 65 cases diagnosed with cephaloceles and tabulated sonographic findings and autopsy recordings as well as medical charts of all survivors in terms of clinical outcome.

Results: The case notes of 65 fetuses were available for final analysis.

Levoatrial Cardinal Vein in a Series of Five Prenatal Cases with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome and Intact Atrial Septum.

 The rare finding of a levoatrial cardinal vein (LACV) represents a pulmonary-systemic connection providing an alternative egress from the left atrium for pulmonary venous blood in fetal cardiac malformations with severe left heart obstruction and intact atrial septum (IAS). The purpose of the study was the description of the various sonographic and Doppler findings, the peripartal management and neonatal outcome of this rare cardiovascular anomaly.  Retrospective review of 53 967 echocardiograms in our fetal database between 2002 and 2013 for cases with an LACV.

Differentiation efficiency of induced pluripotent stem cells depends on the number of reprogramming factors.

Reprogramming of somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) by retroviral overexpression of the transcription factors Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc holds great promise for the development of personalized cell replacement therapies. In an attempt to minimize the risk for chromosomal disruption and to simplify reprogramming, several studies demonstrated that a reduced set of reprogramming factors is sufficient to generate iPSC, albeit at lower efficiency. To elucidate the influence of factor reduction on subsequent differentiation, we compared the efficiency of neuronal differentiation in iPSC generated from postnatal murine neural stem cells with either one (Oct4; iPSC(1F-NSC) ), two (Oct4, Klf4; iPSC(2F-NSC) ), or all four factors (iPSC(4F-NSC) ) with those of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and iPSC produced from fibroblasts with all four factors (iPSC(4F-MEF) ).

Analysis of HLA class I and II alleles in sporadic inclusion-body myositis.

Sporadic inclusion body myositis (s-IBM) is characterised by progressive weakness of proximal and distal limb muscles. Most patients are aged over 50 years at disease onset. Muscle biopsy reveals an inflammatory myopathy and cytoplasmic amyloid deposits.