A Preliminary Study on the Safety of Elastography during Pregnancy: Hypoacusia, Anthropometry, and Apgar Score in Newborns.

Transient or acoustic radiation force elastography (ARFE) is becoming the most extended technology to assess cervical effacement, additionally to the Bishop test and conventional ultrasound. However, a debate on the fetal safety has been opened due to the high intensity focused beam emitted to produce shear waves. This work is aimed at providing preliminary data to assess clinical effects of fetal exposure.

In Vivo Measurement of Cervical Elasticity on Pregnant Women by Torsional Wave Technique: A Preliminary Study.

A torsional wave (TW) sensor prototype was employed to quantify stiffness of the cervix in pregnant women. A cross-sectional study in a total of 18 women between 16 weeks and 35 weeks + 5 days of gestation was performed. The potential of TW technique to assess cervical ripening was evaluated by the measurement of stiffness related to gestational age and cervical length.

Performance Study of a Torsional Wave Sensor and Cervical Tissue Characterization.

A novel torsional wave sensor designed to characterize mechanical properties of soft tissues is presented in this work. Elastography is a widely used technique since the 1990s to map tissue stiffness. Moreover, quantitative elastography uses the velocity of shear waves to achieve the shear stiffness.

[Cartography of psychoactive heterotopias: a look at the medical, legal and social discourses regarding drug use].

This article traces a map of the social control of drugs through the politics of space, according to the Foucaultian concept of "heterotopia." Firstly, a brief genealogy of the use of psychotropic substances in different times and cultures is described, up to the introduction of the prohibitionist paradigm. Attention is paid to the way in which power has marked, separated and enclosed certain rituals and uses of pleasure in physical and symbolic sites.

Transient Elastography to Assess the Cervical Ripening during Pregnancy: A Preliminary Study.

 To explore the feasibility of transient elastography (TE) to quantify cervical stiffness changes during normal pregnancy and its spatial variability.  TE was used to quantify the cervical stiffness in four anatomical regions. 42 women between 17 and 43 years of age and at 6 - 41 weeks of gestation were studied.