BACKGROUND Increased numbers of phenotypically unusual CD56(bright) CD16- uterine natural killer (uNK) cells have been associated with recurrent reproductive failure. uNK cells produce angiogenic growth factors and are potential regulators of decidual angiogenesis in early pregnancy. The final common mechanism for early pregnancy loss is thought to be early onset of the maternal circulation and...

Objective(s): NOTCH signaling pathway is well known for its role in cell fate, cell survival, cell differentiation, and apoptosis. Some of the NOTCH signaling genes are critical for endometrial function and implantation in animals and appear to play a similar role in humans. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the potential roles of some main components of the NOTCH family in hu...

A potentially low-risk surgery to improve hemodynamics and functional class in heart failure patients and others with advanced ventricular dysfunction, dynamic cardiomyoplasty (CMP) has been performed over 1,000 times worldwide. During long-term follow-up, arrhythmic sudden cardiac death remains a major cause of death with any advanced medical management (i.e., a 15%−50% risk of recurrent cardi...

Abnormal endometrial function remains a significant cause of implantation failure, recurrent pregnancy loss, and other pathologies responsible for female infertility. The development of novel therapies to treat infertility due to endometrial dysfunction requires an understanding of the latest advancements in endometrial cell biology, such as the role of endometrial stem cells. The remarkable re...

BACKGROUND The optimal percutaneous treatment of drug-eluting stent (DES) in-stent restenosis (ISR) and the correlates for recurrent DES ISR remain unclear. METHODS AND RESULTS From 2003 to 2008, 563 patients presenting with recurrent symptoms of ischemia and angiographic ISR after DES implantation were included. Of these, 327 were treated with re-DES (58.1%), 132 underwent vascular brachythe...

For many couples experiencing infertility, IVF constitutes the last resort treatment, sometimes after other treatment options have also failed. Unfortunately, IVF is not always successful, and the cause for the implantation failure quite often remains unexplained. Depending on the specific circumstances, the use of donor eggs, donor sperm or even a gestational carrier are often recommended in a...

Patients with end-stage heart failure are highly symptomatic and are expected to have a short life expectancy without intervention. For patients who are not candidates for heart transplantation, a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) may be an ideal treatment option as destination therapy, meaning that the patient is expected to live with the device until death (ie, not a bridge to heart trans...

Infertility affects millions of people reproductive age. The failure a blastocyst to implant is leading cause psychological distress. It became increasingly evident that an effective immune dialogue occurs at each step in the fluids surrounding oocyte, spermatozoa, embryo, or endometrium. Exploring and deciphering this could potentially help understand why 50% healthy euploid blastocysts fail i...

A 56-year-old man with a history of ischemic cardiomyopathy and New York Heart Association functional class IV heart failure (HF) requiring intravenous ino-tropic therapy underwent uncomplicated implantation of a continuous-flow left ventricular assist device (LVAD) as bridge to heart transplantation (HT). The patient was weaned off inotropic support during the first week after surgery and had ...