Endometrial stromal hyperplasia: an underrecognized condition.

Hyperplasia of the endometrial stroma is a poorly recognized lesion, lacking widespread recognition with most, if not all, such cases sequestrated in the literature as endometrial stromal nodules or low-grade endometrial stromal sarcomas. In this paper, we describe three examples of "endometrial stromal hyperplasia" which have a remarkable morphological similarity with the normally proliferating endometrial stroma and the endometrial stromal neoplasms, but which also possess subtle, but sufficient, differences to justify their taxonomic separation.

The effects of benzoylecgonine, oxytocin, ritodrine and atosiban on the contractility of myometrium. An experimental study.

Purpose: To investigate the response of pregnant and non pregnant rat myometrium to benzoylecgonine, a cocaine metabolite, and oxytocin and to investigate the efficiency of ritodrine and atosiban to overcome the effects of benzoylecgonine and oxytocin.

Methods: Isolation of rat myometrial tissue and recording of contractile activity with isotonic muscle transducer.

Results: Benzoylecgonine and oxytocin increase myometrial contractility, while atosiban and ritodrine induce myometrial relaxation.

Two-year results of a new two-minute hot liquid balloon endometrial ablation system (Thermablate): a pilot study.

Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility, safety and clinical outcomes of a new 2-minute hot liquid balloon endometrial ablation system (Thermablate).

Material And Method: This prospective observational study included 72 premenopausal women with menorrhagia. All patients were treated from February 2005 through February 2008 under general anaesthesia in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University Hospital of Alexandroupolis, Greece.

Effectiveness of transvaginal colporrhaphy with porcine acellular collagen matrix in the treatment of moderate to severe cystoceles.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of transvaginal anterior colporrhaphy with the use of porcine acellular collagen matrix in the treatment of moderate to severe cystocele.

Materials And Methods: This retrospective study included 95 patients who underwent anterior colporrhaphy with the use of porcine dermus from September 2003 through March 2008 at the Gynaecological Department of University General Hospital of Alexandroupolis in Greece. The inclusion criterion was a grade 2-4 cystocele by the Baden-Walker halfway system.

Intraoperative estimation of sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer by imprint cytology.

Background: Frozen section biopsy has been widely used for intraoperative diagnosis and evaluation of sentinel lymph nodes, so a decision can be made regarding whether to perform axillary clearance during primary surgery. This study aims to discuss the reliability of a simpler and faster method - touch imprint cytology - in the interpretation of metastasis from breast cancer.

Methods: A retrospective review of 41 sentinel lymph node biopsies from patients with breast cancer were examined by intraoperative imprint cytology using rapid Diff-Quick staining.

A stromal myoid cell line provokes thymic T-cell immigration at the second and third gestational trimesters.

Unlabelled: Once lymphoid precursors enter the thymus form the blood stream, they come into contact with thymic stromal cells that guide their maturation into functionally competent T cells. Thymic myoid cells are one such cell type. They have been described as a regular constituent of the thymus of embryonic and young vertebrates and express muscle proteins including myosin, desmin, acetylcholine receptor (AChR), C-protein, MyoD, troponin T, rapsyn, and utrophin.

CD30 (Ber-H2) expression by thymocytes and thymic epithelial cells during the late first and second trimester of gestation: an immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization (ISH) study.

Background: The exact biological function of CD30 in the thymus during development has been only partially elucidated, although data indicate it may be involved in negative selection. This study was prompted by the observation of a positive reaction of thymic epithelial cells (TECs), Hassall's corpuscles, and thymocytes with the monoclonal antibody CD30 during the late first and second trimester.

Material/methods: Twenty paraffin-embedded fetal thymus specimens at the late first and second trimester were investigated by conventional histology and immunohistology for CD30 expression.

Results after hysteroscopic management of premenopausal patients with dysfunctional uterine bleeding or intrauterine lesions.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy, safety and benefits of hysteroscopic surgery in the management of dysfunctional uterine bleeding or intrauterine lesions causing menstrual disorders in premenopausal women.

Methods: We enrolled in this study 228 patients who underwent operative hysteroscopy because of metrorrhagia due to endometrial polyps or submucous myomas diagnosed by hysterosalpingography, transvaginal ultrasound and diagnostic hysteroscopy. In addition, the study population included 27 patients who presented dysfunctional uterine bleeding resistant to medical therapy.

Intraoperative touch imprint cytological analysis of sentinel lymph nodes for the presence of metastases in breast cancer.

Background: Imprint cytology may provide a fast and accurate method for intraoperative screening of sentinel lymph nodes, so a decision can be made regarding whether to perform axillary clearance during primary surgery. If the findings are negative, in many cases axillary dissection can be omitted.

Patients And Methods: 128 sentinel nodes from a cohort of 87 patients that had been identified using technetium-99m nanocolloid as a radioactive tracer and Patent blue dye were dissected for rapid Diff-Quick stained touch preparations.

Human embryonal tissues of all three germ layers can express the CD30 antigen. An immunohistochemical study of 30 fetuses coming after therapeutic abortions from week 8th to week 16th of gestation.

Originally, expression of the CD30 antigen was shown to be typical of the tumor cells of Hodgkin disease and of anaplastic large cell lymphomas. In reactive lymphoid tissue, CD30 is expressed only in a small population of activated lymphoid blasts. Since then, several reports have been published describing CD30 expression in non lymphoid tissues and neoplasms, such as embryonal carcinomas, seminomas, cultivated macrophages, histiocytic neoplastic cells, deciduals cells, and mesothelioma cells.

Abdominal rectus muscle sheath abscess after spontaneous vaginal delivery. A case report.

Postpartum infections cause severe morbidity of the mother. Abdominal wound infection and abscess formation are common complications after cesarean delivery. We report a case with abscess formation inside the abdominal rectus muscle sheath after normal, spontaneous vaginal delivery.

NCL-CD30 staining of epithelial cells in the basal germinative layer of the epidermis and epithelial buds during foetal skin development.

The fact that the CD30 molecule can mediate signals for cell proliferation or apoptosis prompted us to perform a systematic investigation of CD30 antigen expression in embryonal tissues during proliferation and differentiation stages. We first targeted the foetal human intestinal cryptae cells with positive results. The epidermis is a dynamic epithelium that is constantly renewed throughout life.

Distribution of somatostatin in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma remodels the normal pattern of the protein during foetal pancreatic development: an immunohistochemical analysis.

Aim: To determine the immunoreactivity of somatostatin during the development of the human fetal pancreas and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, given that, somatostatin-positive cells were demonstrated either into its embryonic anlage or into pancreatic cancer.

Methods: Tissue sections from 15 pancreatic fetal specimens, and an equal number of ductal adenocarcinoma specimens were assessed.

Results: The density of positive cells in the primitive exocrine ductal epithelium and endocrine epithelium was significantly different from the relevant density in the neoplastic pancreatic tissue of mixed (ductal-endocrine) and pure ductal type (P1=0.

Ber-H2 (CD30) immunohistochemical staining of human fetal tissues.

Objective: CD30 antigen has long been considered to be restricted to the tumour cells of Hodgkin's disease and of anaplastic large cell lymphoma as well as to T and B activated lymphocytes. It is now apparent that the range of normal and neoplastic cells, which may express CD30 antigen, is much wider than was at first thought. In order to gain insight into the physiological function of CD30 antigen, we studied the distribution of its expression in the tissues of fetuses from week 8th to week 16th.

CD30 (Ki-1) molecule expression in human embryonal epithelial cells of the basal layer of the developing epidermis and epidermal buds and its potential significance for embryogenesis.

Objective: CD30 antigen has long been considered to be restricted to tumour cells of Hodgkin's disease, of anaplastic large cell lymphoma and T and B activated lymphocytes. Expression of CD30 antigen has been reported in the decidual stroma, cultivated macrophages, lipoblasts, myoepithelial cells, reactive and neoplastic vascular lesions, mesotheliomas, embryonal carcinoma and seminoma cells. The fact that the CD30 molecule can mediate signals for cell proliferation or apoptosis prompted us to perform a systematic investigation of CD30 antigen expression in embryonal tissues during the proliferation and differentiation stages.

Altered intrahepatic hematopoiesis in neonates from women with pregnancy induced hypertension/pre-eclampsia.

Aim: To detect whether preeclampsia influences neonatal intrahepatic hematopoiesis, given that an activation of fetal neutrophils and monocytes during the course of this disorder occurs.

Experimental Design: We examined liver samples from 10 neonates of hypertensive/preeclamptic women at 27 to 28 weeks of gestation delivered by a cessarian section. All neonates were placed in incubators but they all died within 24 hours due to immaturity.

Evaluation during early puerperium of the low transverse incision after cesarean section through vaginal ultrasonography.

Objective: This study was designed in order to determine the criteria of the natural healing of the low transverse cesarean incision through vaginal ultrasonography.

Methods: The uterine wound was examined with a vaginal scanner (5.5-7 MHz) in 75 asymptomatic patients with a normal postoperative course three days after the cesarean section.

Cigarette smoking and the degree of maturation of the vaginal squamous epithelium in postmenopausal women.

To determine the effects of cigarette smoking on vaginal squamous epithelium in postmenopausal women, we studied the vaginal smear patterns of 199 healthy postmenopausal non-smokers and 41 healthy postmenopausal smokers, with a mean age of 56 years. A statistically significant difference to the hazard of smokers was found in the percentage of smears manifesting absence of maturation of vaginal squamous cells. A high incidence of atrophic-type vaginal smears in the group of smokers was also found independent of postmenopausal age.

Biomagnetic measurements of the brain activity of preeclamptic pregnant women using a superconducting quantum interference device.

Biomagnetic brain activity was studied in 17 full-term pregnant women with symptoms of pre-eclampsia using the biomagnetometer SQUID. The results show obvious differences both in the waveforms and in the spectra that obtained from statistical Fourier analysis by comparing them with the corresponding results from 87 pregnant women with normal full-term pregnancies. Specifically, in the pathological pregnancies the high magnetic field activity emitted from points of the mother's brain is distributed in the 2-7 Hz band frequency range whereas in normal pregnancies we found low magnetic field activity distributed over the 7 Hz band frequency.

Biomagnetic measurements in uterine leiomyomas using a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID).

Using the biomagnetometer superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), the magnetic signals relating to spontaneous uterine activity were measured for the first time in 25 women with uterine leiomyomas, and 12 women with normal, non-leiomyomatous, uteri. Magnetic radiation, in the range of low frequency (below 2 Hz), was of low amplitudes in normal uterine tissues and of high amplitudes in benign leiomyomas. The observed differences were confirmed by the corresponding power spectra obtained from the statistical Fourier analysis.