von Willebrand factor antigen: a biomarker for severe pregnancy complications in women with hereditary thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura?

Background: Hereditary thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (hTTP) is associated with severe obstetric morbidity (SOM) during pregnancy. Treatment with fresh frozen plasma (FFP) mitigates the risk in some women, but others respond poorly and continue to suffer obstetric complications.

Objectives: To determine a possible association between SOM and elevated nonpregnant von Willebrand factor (NPVWF) antigen levels in women with hTTP and whether the latter can predict the response to FFP transfusion.

Human leukocyte antigen HLA-C, HLA-G, HLA-F, and HLA-E placental profiles are altered in early severe preeclampsia and preterm birth with chorioamnionitis.

Background: The extravillous trophoblast expresses each of the nonclassical major histocompatibility complex class I antigens-human leukocyte antigens E, F, and G-and a single classical class I antigen, human leukocyte antigen C. We recently demonstrated dynamic expression patterns of human leukocyte antigens C, G, and F during early extravillous trophoblast invasion and placentation.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the hypothesis that the immune inflammatory mediated complications of pregnancy such as early preeclampsia and preterm labor may show altered expression profiles of nonclassical human leukocyte antigens.

Fetal Dilated Cardiomyopathy Associated With Variants of Uncertain Significance in MYH7 and DSG2 Genes: A Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Background: Fetal dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is an uncommon prenatal diagnosis associated with significant morbidity and mortality.

Case: This report describes a patient with a diagnosis of fetal DCM at 31 weeks gestation, several weeks after a maternal flu-like illness. Spontaneous improvement was noted on serial echocardiograms.

Fetal human leukocyte antigen-C and maternal killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors in cases of severe preeclampsia.

Introduction: The pathogenesis of preeclampsia may involve inadequate trophoblast invasion caused by excessive inhibition of uterine natural killer cells (uNK) by extravillous trophoblast cells (EVT). This may be the result of a combination of maternal killer-cell immunoglobin-like receptor (KIR) AA genotype and fetal human leukocyte antigen-C2 (HLA-C2) genotype. A few studies have reported a significantly increased frequency of the maternal KIR AA/fetal HLA-C2 combination in cases of preeclampsia compared to controls.

Do Early Fetal Measurements and Nuchal Translucency Correlate With Term Birth Weight?

Objective: Traditionally, physiological variation in fetal weight is believed to emerge during the latter half of pregnancy. Although recent evidence suggests that crown-rump length (CRL) and nuchal translucency (NT) measured at 11-14 weeks correlate with abnormal fetal growth, findings have been limited by dating accuracy in spontaneous gestations. Therefore, we sought to determine whether CRL or NT measurements correlated with term birth weight (BW) or BW ratio in a cohort of IVF pregnancies, in which the date of conception is precisely known.