INTRODUCTION Preeclampsia (PE) and intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR) are two major pregnancy complications related to chronic utero-placental hypoperfusion. Three-dimensional power Doppler (3DPD) angiography has been used for the evaluation of utero-placental vascularisation and three vascular indices have been calculated: the vascularisation index (VI), flow index (FI) and vascularisatio...

Cerebral language lateralization can be assessed in several ways. In healthy subjects, functional MRI (fMRI) during performance of a language task has evolved to be the most frequently applied method. Functional transcranial Doppler (fTCD) may provide a valid alternative, but has been used rarely. Both techniques have their own strengths and weaknesses and as a result may be applied in differen...

INTRODUCTION Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is a major clinical issue for pregnant women. The purpose of this study was to evaluate color Doppler indices of the proximal and distal parts of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) of the fetus. METHODS In this cross-sectional study, 350 pregnant patients, with gestation age of 32-40 who were suspected to have intrauterine growth restriction, ...

One of the more dramatic structural changes in a number of western industrial societies has involved the increased participation of women in the paid labour force. Little is known about the health consequences of this change. This paper reports the findings of a prospective longitudinal study of 8,556 pregnant women who were interviewed on three occasions; early in their pregnancy, shortly afte...

Recent studies have shown that transvaginal ultrasound provides a more reliable and objective evaluation of the uterine cervix, demonstrating that the shorter the length of the cervix the higher the risk of preterm delivery. Measuring cervical volume could even be a better reflection of cervical morphology. Three-dimensional (3D) imaging combined with power Doppler, theoretically provides the p...

Background: Food intake of rats increases during pregnancy. This requires changes in the structure of the small intestine to absorb additional food. The aim of the present study was to investigate the morphological changes in the layers of small intestine in rats during pregnancy. Materials and Methods: Duodenum, jejunum and ileum of 18 pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats (day 7, 14 and 21 pregnancy) ...

This paper compares the Portuguese and Bulgarian consumer price indices (CPI) and attempts to identify some areas in which the CPI compilation methodology could be improved in the two countries. This work is organised into six sections. The first section briefly describes the organisational structure on which the production of the CPI is based in the two countries. The second section focuses on...