BACKGROUND/AIM Usual histopatological diagnosis of intrauterine pregnancy is made by demonstration of chorionic villi, but in the curettage tissue from intrauterine miscarriage they may not be present in all cases. The use of monoclonal antibody against cytokeratin as a sensitive and reliable marker for the morphologic discrimination between invasive trophoblastic (IT) cells and decidual cells ...

Chorionic villi are finger like projections, which surrounds the embryonic sac in early pregnancy and will later form the placenta. The outer layer of the chorionic villi consists of trophoblast cells. These cells are actively dividing and can be used for direct preparation or short-term culture for prenatal diagnosis of chromosomal abnormalities. We herein describe a 100% reproducible modified...

Prenatal diagnosis of hematologic diseases can now be performed with fetal blood, fetal amniotic fluid cell DNA, and fetal chorionic villi DNA. Some hemoglobinopathies can be detected by all three methods, and the choice will depend on the available obstetric and laboratory techniques, as well as the time of presentation of the pregnancy. Hopefully, further development of molecular probes and t...

Intense research has been carried out into methods that aim at harvesting fetal cells from maternal blood as substitutes to amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling. Although much has been accomplished using well established techniques, a rapid and inexpensive method to separate fetal cells with great accuracy and efficiency to maximize cell yield is still required. This work focuses on the ...

AIM To report on the successful use of Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) as a tool for isolation of human chorionic villi from admixed maternal tissue. Subsequent DNA isolation for forensic short tandem repeat (STR) analysis for parentage testing was performed in two cases of alleged sexual assault of female victims. We also performed validation of the LCM instrument platform, using archival ...

Inherited genetic diseases have been a problem for some families attempting to conceive a child. If affected parents or carriers of genetic disorders wished to avoid transmitting a condition to their child, they can choose to have prenatal diagnosis of their foetus. Amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling enables cells from the foetus to be collected and sent for genetic analysis. They could...

The effect of the introduction of chorionic villus sampling on the utilization rate of prenatal diagnosis in advanced maternal age was studied during the period 1 January 1985-1 January 1991. On the first of January 1985, the age limit for prenatal diagnosis in The Netherlands was lowered from 38 to 36 years of age. The overall uptake rate during the studied period increased significantly, but ...

Inadequate evaluation of vaccine coverage after mass vaccination campaigns, such as used in national measles control programmes, can lead to inappropriate public health responses. Overestimation of vaccination coverage may leave populations at risk, whilst underestimation can lead to unnecessary catch-up campaigns. The problem is more complex in large urban areas where vaccination coverage may ...

Low measles vaccination coverage (VC) leads to recurrent epidemics in many African countries. We describe VC before and after late reinforcement of vaccination activities during a measles epidemic in Niamey, Niger (2003-2004) assessed by Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS). Neighborhoods of Niamey were grouped into 46 lots based on geographic proximity and population homogeneity. Before reinf...