Background: Nearly 40% of unplanned pregnancies in the USA are the result of inconsistent or incorrect contraceptive use. Finding ways to increase women's comfort and satisfaction with contraceptive use is therefore critical to public health. One promising pathway for improving patient outcomes is through the use of digital decision aids that assist women and their physicians in choosing a contraceptive option that women are comfortable with.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHome pregnancy tests (HPTs) available in Europe include accuracy and other performance claims listed on their packaging. Due to the lack of guidance on the standardisation of such products, it is often difficult to replicate these claims when tested on a clinical sample, whether in a laboratory setting or by lay users. The Diagnostic Regulation is a set of requirements that mandate comprehensive validation data on human pregnancy tests and other devices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The geography of rural Australia poses a myriad of logistical dilemmas, including the provision of timely access to emergency orthopaedic hip fracture surgery. Current guidelines support surgery within 48 h, and delays to transfer to a referral hospital may result in worse outcomes and increase mortality rates. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of transfer delays on the clinical outcomes of hip fractures in a rural setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Selecting an embryo at the transfer stage with the best chance of a successful pregnancy is still largely dependent on preceding subjective evaluation of morphokinetics. Expensive prenatal genomic profiling has been so far proved ineffective. Proteomics and metabolomics are promising new approaches to assess embryo viability, but methodologies are often complex and do not lend themselves to rapid analysis in the critical time between blastocyst formation and embryo transfer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrend diets can be commonplace amongst those who are trying to lose weight but in most cases there is some shred of evidence to suggest they might be of some benefit. Seldom is there a diet which is such a fad that it is not only completely unfounded but also potential harmful. The human chorionic gonadotropin or "hCG diet" is such a diet, which after half a century still has no evidence to support its efficacy; in fact all scientific publications subsequent to the original article counter these claims.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The established methods of antenatal screening for Down syndrome are based on immunoassay for a panel of maternal serum biomarkers together with ultrasound measures. Recently, genetic analysis of maternal plasma cell free (cf) DNA has begun to be used but has a number of limitations including excessive turn-around time and cost. We aimed to develop an alternative method based on urinalysis that is simple, affordable and accurate.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To investigate the ability of B152 to block cancer growth in cell lines in vivo and in nude mice in vitro.
Study Design: We examined JAR, JEG-3, and NTERA trophoblastic cancer cell lines and KLE, Hec-1A, SCaBER, and T24 nontrophoblastic cancer cell lines. JEG-3 cells were transplanted into 8 nude mice.
J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci
January 2015
Human sleep is a natural part of every individual's life. Clear relationship between sleep and endocrine system has been already established. In particular, melatonin and cortisol are known to affect and regulate sleep/wake patterns.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: A high rate of sleep disturbances has been reported in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) but the underlying aetiology has yet to be identified. Melatonin and cortisol levels display circadian rhythmicity and are known to affect and regulate sleep/wake patterns. The current study examined the levels of these two endocrine markers and explored a possible relationship with sleep patterns in children with WS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe analysis of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in clinical chemistry laboratories by specific immunoassay is well established. However, changes in glycosylation are not as easily assayed and yet alterations in hCG glycosylation is associated with abnormal pregnancy. hCGβ-core fragment (hCGβcf) was isolated from the urine of women, pregnant with normal, molar and hyperemesis gravidarum pregnancies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Ectopic secretion of human chorionic gonadotrophin free beta (hCGβ) by epithelial cancer is associated with aggressive tumors which more readily metastasize, possibly by acting as an autocrine anti-apoptotic agent. hCGβ is encoded by six homologous CGB genes, with poorly-understood variable transcriptionally active expression profiles; CGB1 and CGB2 have always been considered pseudogenes. However, transcripts from CGB1 and -2 can be detected in placental, testicular and pituitary tissues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Expression of human chorionic gonadotropin beta subunit (hCGβ) by epithelial carcinomas is associated with a poor prognosis and has a proposed autocrine growth effect on cancer cells by inhibition of apoptosis.
Material And Methods: We transduced the hCGβ-expressing bladder cancer cell line SCaBER with short hairpin (sh) RNA lentiviral gene-specific (CGB) constructs and determined its impact on the synthesis of hCGβ and the resultant effect on cancer cell growth.
Results: Stable CGB gene-silenced clones exhibited a 60%-80% reduction in the level of hCGβ expressed and a reduced growth rate of more than 40% compared to wild-type SCaBER cells.
Objectives: Tubal rupture as a result of an ectopic pregnancy is the leading cause of first trimester maternal mortality. Currently, the diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy depends on transvaginal ultrasound and serial serum measurements of human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), which requires follow up. The objective of this study was to examine whether single point measurements at presentation could distinguish between women with ectopic pregnancy, viable pregnancy, and spontaneous miscarriage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is produced by trophoblast cells throughout pregnancy, and gene expression studies have indicated that hCG-beta subunit (hCGβ) expression is active at the 2 blastomere stage. Here, we investigated the qualitative hCG output of developing embryos in culture and hCG isoforms expressed in the secretome as a novel sensitive method for detecting hCG. Culture media was collected from the culture plates of 118 embryos in culture (including controls and embryos at different stages of culture) from 16 patients undergoing routine fertility treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The use of tumor-derived proteins as cancer vaccines is complicated by tolerance to these self-antigens. Tolerance may be broken by immunization with activated, autologous, ex vivo generated and antigen-loaded, antigen-presenting cells (APC); however, targeting tumor antigen directly to APC in vivo would be a less complicated strategy. We wished to test whether targeted delivery of an otherwise poorly immunogenic, soluble antigen to APC through their mannose receptors (MR) would induce clinically relevant immunity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a heterogeneous glycoprotein hormone comprising an alpha-subunit and beta-subunit that can vary in peptide and carbohydrate structure. After conception, hCG produced by early trophoblast cells acts on luteinizing hormone (LH)/hCG receptor corpus luteum cells to promote progesterone production and establish maternal recognition of pregnancy. hCG is not simply 1 molecule, and 2 variants of hCG appear to have independent activities in promoting tumor cell growth, invasion and malignancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Hyperglycosylated human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG-H) is a carbohydrate variant of hCG with double-sized oligosaccharide side chains. While hCG-H is produced exclusively by stem cytotrophoblast cells in gestational choriocarcinoma, by pregnancy cytotrophoblast at implantation and by the cytotrophoblast produced in testicular malignancies, regular hCG is produced only by differentiated syncytiotrophoblast cells.
Study Design: hCG-H was measured using the Nichols Advantage hCG-H assay (Nichols Institute Diagnostics, San Clemente, California).
Objective: To investigate the biochemical relationship between follicular/oocyte maturity and follicular inhibins and activin levels.
Design: Prospective study.
Setting: Research laboratory in university hospital.
Objective: Hyperglycosylated hCG (hCG-H) is a glycosylation variant of hCG produced by cytotrophoblast cells at implantation of pregnancy and in choriocarcinoma. We investigated the biological function of hCG-H in invasion in vitro and in vivo and the use of hCG-H antibodies in blocking tumorigenesis and cancer growth in vivo.
Methods And Results: hCG-H accounts for 43% to 100% of total hCG immunoreactivity in the culture fluid of choriocarcinoma cell lines and 100% in primary cultures of pregnancy cytotrophoblast cells.
Objectives: A high proportion of women with persistent low levels of hCG, in the absence of pregnancy or any evidence of tumor, have received chemotherapy and hysterectomy for assumed malignancy. Such chemotherapy and surgery were ineffective and unwarranted. This study identifies the causes of persistent low level of hCG and provides guidelines for the management of these patients, preventing unnecessary treatment in the future.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To determine whether circulating hyperglycosylated human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG-H), a promoter of choriocarcinoma growth and tumorigenesis, is a reliable marker of active gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) or choriocarcinoma, and whether hCG-H can consistently discriminate quiescent gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD) from neoplasia.
Methods: Patients were those referred to the USA hCG Reference Service for consultation. These included a total of 82 women with GTN, including 30 with histologic choriocarcinoma.
The ectopic production of free hCG beta is a common phenomenon in epithelial tumours, a phenomenon originally believed to have no biological significance. However, it is now apparent that hCG beta may significantly effect tumour development by increasing cell populations through inhibition of apoptosis. The recently identified hCG beta beta homodimer, with topological similarities to cystine knot growth factors, has been suggested to be the responsible mediator of these novel tumourigenic responses.
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