[Determination of blood cystatin C in pregnant women during labor and in their newborns].

Introduction: Human cystatin C is a basic low molecular mass protein (M(r) = 13,359) freely filtered by the glomerulus and almost completely reabsorbed and catabolized by the proximal tubular cells. In this study, we determined maternal and neonatal serum cystatin C levels both in a group of healthy pregnant women and in their newborns over the first five days of life.

Patients And Methods: Fifty healthy pregnant women, aged from 19 to 40 years, were selected.

[Prophylactic use of cefotetan in gynecologic surgery].

The efficacy of prophylactic treatment with systemic antibiotics in laparotomic gynecologic surgery is well established. Lately, short-term schemes have been preferred in surgical prophylaxis for different reasons. First of all, experimental data demonstrated that the efficacy of an antibiotic is maximal when it reaches active tissue concentrations at the time of bacterial contamination.

Radioreceptor assay for the measurement of endogenous digitalis-like factors using membrane particulate fraction of human placenta and 125I-digoxin: comparison with RIA method.

We measured purified extracts of serum (plasma) or urine samples of newborns, pregnant women, normal adults, and uremic patients by a radioreceptor assay (RRA), which uses particulate membrane fractions from human placenta as a binding system, and 125I-digoxin as a tracer. We also measured the digoxin-like immunoreactivity by a sensitive RIA, and results were compared with those found by the RRA. Specific 125I-digoxin binding to placental receptors was competitively inhibited by purified plasma and/or urine extracts of newborns, adult subjects, pregnant women and uremic patients.

Dilemmas in intrauterine fetal growth retardation. The significance of anticomplement and heparin-like activities of placenta at term and the prognostic value of HCS and E3 maternal plasma concentrations during pregnancy.

The Authors studied the behaviour of anticomplement and heparin-like activities in human term placentas in relation to intrauterine fetal growth retardation. These two biological activities might be involved in regulatory mechanisms of great importance for the fetal growth. The anticomplement activity was significantly lower in IUGR placentas than in controls, while no change was found in heparin-like activity.

Evaluation of the central dopaminergic activity in gestational hyperprolactinaemia by means of the electroretinographic technique.

Electroretinography, a simple, bloodless technique commonly used in ophthalmological diagnostic practice, seems to give important informations on the level of activity of the retinal and/or other central dopaminergic systems. The Authors have employed this technique in a group of 30 normal pregnant women in the ninth month of gestation, in order to evaluate the dopaminergic activity in a condition of physiological hyperprolactinemia, such as pregnancy, and in a group of 25 normal nonpregnant control women. The b wave amplitude of the electroretinographic traces was significantly higher in pregnant women than in controls, suggesting an over-activity of dopaminergic systems in late pregnancy.