BACKGROUND Fetal DNA has been found in maternal plasma and serum. Diagnosis of fetal gender using maternal plasma and serum has been attempted in an effort to develop a new noninvasive method of prenatal diagnosis. METHODS Peripheral blood samples were obtained from 61 pregnant women at 10-17 weeks of gestation before amniocentesis. DNA was extracted from 800 microL of each plasma or serum sa...

From 1982 to 1989, pregnant women in two large city hospitals in The Netherlands had serum samples screened for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). Infants of mothers found to be HBsAg-positive received hepatitis B immune globulin immediately after birth and hepatitis B vaccine in the first year of life. Blood samples of infants were regularly tested for HBsAg and antibodies directed against H...

BACKGROUND Intra-amniotic inflammation is associated with adverse pregnancy and neonatal outcomes. However, the impact on child neurodevelopment remains unclear. We aim to assess the effect of intra-amniotic inflammation on neurodevelopmental outcomes in children. METHODS The databases MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and Cochrane will be searched from their inception until November 2017. Randomized ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the clinical advantage of several prognostic factors for predicting preterm delivery. MATERIALS AND METHODS Eighty and six patients with a singleton pregnancy admitted to Vali-Asr hospital underwent genetic amniocentesis between the 15th and 23th weeks were included in this study. Maternal serum C-reactive protein (CRP), transvaginal sonographic measurement of cervica...

OBJECTIVE To present our experience of amniocentesis for the prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome due to unbalanced homologous acrocentric rearrangements and its recurrence in subsequent pregnancies. CASE REPORT From January 1987 to September 2009, six cases with rea(21q21q) Down syndrome were diagnosed among 31,194 patients who underwent amniocentesis at Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiw...

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate of fetal chromosome analysis in amniocentesis and fetal blood sampling cases. Method: We analysis of 649 cases between January 2007March 2009 in Dicle University Medical Faculty Department of Genetic. The study was included 552 amniocentesis and 97 fetal blood sampling cases. Lymphocyte culture prepared in duplicate and totally ten slides were p...

Amnioscopy is the simplest and most widely used method for the estimation of slow progessive hypoxic fetal risk during the last four weeks of pregnancy [4]. A questionnaire organized together with WAGNER including 25% of all obstetrics clinics in our country showed that in 1971 85% of them used amnioscopy [5]. In the case of a multiple pregnancy the use of this simple procedure did not appear t...

Inflammation plays an important role in pregnancy, and cytokine and matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) imbalance has been associated with premature rupture of membranes and increased risk of preterm delivery. Previous studies have demonstrated that lactoferrin (LF), an iron-binding protein with anti-inflammatory properties, is able to decrease amniotic fluid (AF) levels of IL-6. Therefore, we aimed...

OBJECTIVE To assess prospectively the diagnostic reliability and prognostic significance of prenatal diagnosis of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection. METHODS One hundred ten pregnant women (four with twin pregnancies) with a risk of congenital CMV infection were investigated. Prenatal diagnosis was carried out by amniocentesis and fetal blood sampling (n = 75) or amniocentesis alone (n = 35). Se...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association of maternal age with occurrence of fetal chromosomal abnormalities in Korean pregnant women of advanced maternal age (AMA). METHODS A retrospective review of the amniocentesis or chorionic villous sampling (CVS) database at Gangnam and Bundang CHA Medical Centers, between January 2001 and February 2012, was conducted. This study analyzed the incidence of ...