Percutaneous in utero thoracoamniotic shunt creation for fetal thoracic abnormalities leading to nonimmune hydrops.

Purpose: To describe a transabdominal, transuterine Seldinger-based percutaneous approach to create a shunt for treatment of fetal thoracic abnormalities.

Materials And Methods: Five fetuses presented with nonimmune fetal hydrops secondary to fetal thoracic abnormalities causing severe mass effect. Under direct ultrasound guidance, an 18-gauge needle was used to access the malformation.

Ambulatory management of chronic hypertension in pregnancy.

Chronic hypertension in pregnancy is one of the most common medical diseases affecting pregnancy. It is associated with serious maternal and fetal complications, including superimposed pre-eclampsia, fetal growth restriction, premature delivery, placental abruption, and stillbirth. Baseline evaluation as early as possible is important to differentiate women with essential hypertension from those with severe hypertension, coexisting end-organ damage, and secondary causes of hypertension, as their risks of poor outcomes are increased.

Influence of temperature during transportation on cell-free DNA analysis.

Objective: To determine the effect of shipping blood in Streck blood collection tubes (BCT) prior to processing on cell-free DNA (cf-DNA) levels.

Methods: Blood was collected in ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and BCT tubes from 10 pregnant women carrying male fetuses. One set of each tube for each subject was processed to plasma immediately (standard cf-DNA protocol), whereas the other set was shipped by air courier and then processed.

Non-invasive prenatal detection of trisomy 21 using tandem single nucleotide polymorphisms.

Background: Screening tests for Trisomy 21 (T21), also known as Down syndrome, are routinely performed for the majority of pregnant women. However, current tests rely on either evaluating non-specific markers, which lead to false negative and false positive results, or on invasive tests, which while highly accurate, are expensive and carry a risk of fetal loss. We outline a novel, rapid, highly sensitive, and targeted approach to non-invasively detect fetal T21 using maternal plasma DNA.

A national study of job satisfaction and burnout among perfusionists.

A national qualitative survey of perfusionists to assess their level of job stress, career satisfaction, and burnout in various organizational settings was performed. The hypothesis for this study is incorporated into the following research questions. First, is there an association between job satisfaction and burnout among perfusionists? Second, is there an association between level of burnout and intention to leave their job or profession among perfusionists? Third, is there a difference in job satisfaction and burnout across different organizational affiliations of perfusionists? Invitations to participate in the survey were sent by electronic mail to the 1478 AmSECT members with an e-mail address.