Four-dimensional and Doppler sonography in the diagnosis and surveillance of a true cord knot.

Prenatal diagnosis of a true knot of the umbilical cord is often an incidental observation at ultrasound with a difficult differential diagnosis between true and false knots. Furthermore, little is known about the optimal management of these cases. We report the importance of color Doppler and four-dimensional ultrasound for the differential diagnosis in the case of true cord knot and the role of Doppler flow velocimetry in the management of that case.

Preoperative diagnosis of 221 consecutive ovarian masses: scoring system and expert evaluation.

Objective: The aim of our work was to assess the diagnostic accuracy of a scoring system versus subjective assessment of the risk of malignancy of pelvic masses achieved by gynecologist/sonologists in the preoperative triage of a busy gynecology department.

Methods: One hundred and eighty-two consecutive patients who underwent surgical removal of ovarian neoplasms were examined. In 39 patients pelvic masses were bilateral.

Regulation of the proliferative potential of cord blood long-term culture-initiating cells (LTC-IC) by different stromal cell lines: implications for LTC-IC measurement.

Background And Objective: Long-term culture-initiating cells (LTC-IC) are the best available approximation to an in vitro assay of stem cells in humans although they still represent a heterogeneous population in terms of proliferative capacity and sensitivity to different growth factors. Human umbilical cord blood (CB) is rich in hemopoietic progenitor cells, as measured by clonogenic assays and contains stem cells capable of reconstituting the marrow after ablation in clinical transplantation. We evaluated the influence of culture conditions on the in vitro behavior of LTC-IC from CB.

[Metabolic compensation and malformations in pregnancy complicated by diabetes].

Congenital malformations are considered the more frequent perinatal complications affecting offsprings of diabetic mothers; they represent the main cause of mortality of these neonates. Since diabetes is strictly controlled, the incidence and the seriousness of its complications are reduced from 8-10% to 2-3%. In this study we followed 56 pregnancies complicated by diabetes.