Oral Glucose-Lowering Agents vs Insulin for Gestational Diabetes: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Metformin and glyburide monotherapy are used as alternatives to insulin in managing gestational diabetes. Whether a sequential strategy of these oral agents results in noninferior perinatal outcomes compared with insulin alone is unknown.

Objective: To test whether a treatment strategy of oral glucose-lowering agents is noninferior to insulin for prevention of large-for-gestational-age infants.

A positive association between postpartum electrohysterography parameters and blood loss after vaginal delivery: A prospective study.

Introduction: The postpartum period can be complicated by hemorrhage, frequently caused by uterine atony. Electrohysterography, allowing continuous monitoring of uterine activity, may be a promising alternative for early detection of uterine atony, and thereby contribute to the prevention of postpartum hemorrhage. Associations between electrohysterographic parameters postpartum and total blood loss were studied.

Quantitative F-FDG PET-CT can assess presence and extent of interstitial lung disease in early severe diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis.

Background: This study aimed to assess the quantitative uptake of F-FDG PET-CT in the lungs of patients with early severe diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis (SSc) with and without interstitial lung disease (ILD), compared to controls. In patients with SSc-ILD, F-FDG uptake was correlated to high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) and pulmonary function test (PFT) parameters.

Methods: A prospective, cross-sectional study was conducted, involving 15 patients with SSc-ILD, 5 patients with SSc without ILD, and 7 controls without SSc.

Dermal cellular senescence and EndMT in patients with systemic sclerosis undergoing cyclophosphamide or aHSCT treatment.

Objectives: Cellular senescence and endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EndMT) are profibrotic cellular processes involved in systemic sclerosis (SSc), but how they respond to treatment is largely unknown.

Methods: Skin biopsies from diffuse cutaneous SSc (dcSSc) patients who underwent either autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (aHSCT) or cyclophosphamide pulse (iv CYC) treatment were collected before and 6 months after randomisation in the Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation International Scleroderma (ASTIS) trial. The extent of fibrosis, inflammation, senescence, EndMT and tissue remodelling were examined in histopathology.

Two-dimensional fetal speckle tracking; a learning curve study for offline strain analysis.

Objectives: Two-dimensional speckle tracking (2D-STE) strain analysis holds promise for assessing fetal cardiac function. Understand the learning curve before introducing 2D-STE into obstetrics is crucial. This study examined the learning curve for offline analysis of fetal left (LV) and right ventricular (RV) global longitudinal strain (GLS) using 2D-STE.