Changes in levator hiatus dimensions during pregnancy and after delivery in nulliparas: a prospective cohort study using 3D transperineal ultrasound.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes that occur in the levator ani muscle (1) during pregnancy and (2) after labor depending on the mode of delivery in a cohort of nulliparas.

Materials And Methods: A prospective cohort longitudinal study, consisting of 84 primiparas who were examined and recruited in an antenatal clinic was conducted. All participants were submitted to a real-time three-dimensional (3D) ultrasonographic evaluation of the levator ani at (1) 12, (2) 22, and (3) 32 weeks of pregnancy (4) and 4-6 months postdelivery.

Transfusion-dependent homozygous beta-thalassaemia major: successful pregnancy in five cases.

beta-Thalassaemia major is a severe, transfusion-dependent anaemia that also causes infertility due to iron deposition to endocrine organs. Very few pregnancies have been reported among such patients. In this report we describe the evolution and successful outcome of pregnancy in 5 Greek women with beta-thalassaemia major.

Cigarette smoking and urinary incontinence in women--a new calculative method of estimating the exposure to smoke.

The aim of the study was to investigate the relation between cigarette smoking and urinary incontinence. A group of 80 women with incontinence (Group A) were tested urodynamically and compared with a group of 80 continent women (Group B). Patients were divided into smokers (S) and non-smokers (NS) with the incontinent ones classified as suffering from stress (SI) or motor in-continent (UI).

[Pregnancy and labor in idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura].

Clinical data from eight pregnant women with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) were retrospectively analyses. The mean age of the women was 28.2 years.

[SHBG serum level in women with endometriosis before, during and after long-term danazol therapy].

Ten patients with endometriosis, aged from 21 to 37 years, were treated with danazol at a dosage level of 200 mg three times daily for 6 months. Three blood samples were drawn 60 min apart for evaluation of the sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), before danazol administration (4th day of the cycle), during the last two weeks of the six-month therapy and three months after the cessation of treatment (4th day of the cycle). In contrast to that, SHBG levels were also evaluated in ten normal women, aged 21-37 years (4th day of the cycle).