Emergency cerclage following a standardized protocol offers an effective and safe therapeutic option for women with high risk for prematurity - a retrospective monocentric cohort study on 130 pregnancies and 155 neonates.

Objective: To present emergency cerclage (EC) as a safe and effective therapeutic option for prevention of prematurity in women with advanced cervical dilation in second-trimester pregnancy. It is focused on seemingly futile situations like cervical dilation >5 cm, bulging membranes and multifetal pregnancies. The outcomes of interest are the prolongation of pregnancy, gestational age at delivery and neonatal morbidity and mortality related to distinct risk factors.

3D norm data: the first step towards semiautomatic virtual craniofacial surgery.

When planning craniofacial surgical interventions, the ideal appearance of the patient is very important. The final appearance should be as close as possible to that which the patient would have if he/she were without defects. Our first step towards achieving this is to build a database containing sets of three-dimensional CT images that allows for comparison of the shape of a patient with defects to the typical shape of an age- and sex-matched "average" person without defects.

Role of bradykinin in the antihypertensive and cardioprotective actions of converting enzyme inhibitors.

Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) not only reduce angiotensin II synthesis but also potentiate endogenous kinins. In addition to their antihypertensive actions, accumulated evidence has demonstrated an improvement by ACEIs of cardiac function, cardiac structural and metabolic status, and myocardial blood flow in conditions such as cardiac ischemia, left ventricular hypertrophy, and myocardial infarction. The mechanisms underlying the antihypertensive and cardioprotective actions of ACEIs are under intensive investigation.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition in infarct-induced heart failure in rats: bradykinin versus angiotensin II.

Background: The beneficial effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors in the prevention of heart failure following myocardial infarction are widely accepted. However, the underlying mechanisms are still a matter of discussion. We therefore investigated the relative contribution of the breakdown of bradykinin and of the inhibition of angiotensin-II synthesis to the beneficial actions of ACE inhibitors in chronic heart failure following myocardial infarction.