The majority of the information on the effects of in utero exposure to chemotherapy has been derived from retrospective case reports and series. Overviews of the available data have concluded that the timing of chemotherapy exposure (first trimester versus second and third trimesters) as well as the chemotherapeutic agent or agents used affect the risk of spontaneous abortion and miscarriage as...

Uhl's anomaly is rarely diagnosed antenatally. It is a condition characterised by partial or complete absence of the right ventricular myocardium and the heart conducting system. We present a case of Uhl's anomaly diagnosed during fetal life on prenatal ultrasound, with eight years postnatal follow-up.

Currently little is known about the mechanisms regulating the homing and the early engraftment of prenatally transplanted hematopoietic cells due to the lack of a relevant functional assay. In this study, we have defined a reproducible kinetic profile of the homing and the early engraftment events in a murine model of prenatal stem cell transplantation. Light density mononuclear cells (LDMCs) f...

At the time of birth, respiratory muscles must be activated to sustain ventilation. The perinatal development of respiratory motor units (comprising an individual motoneuron and the muscle fibers it innervates) shows remarkable features that enable mammals to transition from in utero conditions to the air environment in which the remainder of their life will occur. In addition, significant post...

Progress has been made in the treatment of children born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. From a mortality of more than 95% at 1 month of age in an era prior to surgical intervention, an actuarial survival of 58% at 5 years of age for staged surgical palliation is now being achieved. The short-term results with cardiac transplantation also appear to be excellent. Efforts are being directed...