Do maternal demographics and prenatal history impact the efficacy of betamethasone therapy for threatened preterm labor?

Background: Betamethasone (BMZ) is used to accelerate fetal lung maturation in women with threatened preterm birth, but its efficacy is variable and limited by the lack of patient individualization in its dosing and administration. To determine sources of variability and potential opportunities for individualization of therapy, the objective of this study was to evaluate maternal factors associated with development of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) in a cohort of women who received betamethasone.

Methods: This study prospectively enrolled women, gestational ages 23-34 weeks, who received betamethasone for threatened preterm birth.

Nonuniform Internal Structure of Fibrin Fibers: Protein Density and Bond Density Strongly Decrease with Increasing Diameter.

The major structural component of a blood clot is a meshwork of fibrin fibers. It has long been thought that the internal structure of fibrin fibers is homogeneous; that is, the protein density and the bond density between protofibrils are uniform and do not depend on fiber diameter. We performed experiments to investigate the internal structure of fibrin fibers.