Cervical cerclage - history and contemporary use.

Objective: Contemporary role of cerclage as a preterm birth treatment.

Design: Review article.

Setting: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the First Faculty of Medicine and General Teaching Hospital in Prague.

A method for determination of one hundred endogenous steroids in human serum by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

Steroid profiling helps various pathologies to be rapidly diagnosed. Results from analyses investigating steroidogenic pathways may be used as a tool for uncovering pathology causations and proposals of new therapeutic approaches. The purpose of this study was to address still underutilized application of the advanced GC-MS/MS platform for the multicomponent quantification of endogenous steroids.

May circulating steroids reveal a predisposition to intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy in non-pregnant women?

Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) is a frequent liver disorder, mostly occurring in the third trimester. ICP is not harmful to the mothers but threatens the fetus. The authors evaluated steroid alterations in maternal and mixed umbilical blood to elucidate their role in the ICP development.

[Septic shock in pregnancy on the basis of an acute pyelonephritis].

Objective: According to the World Health Organisation, sepsis is one of the four main causes of pregnancy-related mortality worldwide, together with hemorrhage, hypertensive disease and abortion. The main goal of this paper is an analysis of one case of septic shock in pregnancy.

Design: A case report.

A Comprehensive Evaluation of Steroid Metabolism in Women with Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy.

Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) is a common liver disorder, mostly occurring in the third trimester. ICP is defined as an elevation of serum bile acids, typically accompanied by pruritus and elevated activities of liver aminotransferases. ICP is caused by impaired biliary lipid secretion, in which endogenous steroids may play a key role.