Ectopic pregnancies are a serious gynaecological emergency that can be fatal. As such, prompt diagnosis and safe timely treatment is essential. Here, we review the literature on the development of molecularly targeted diagnostics and therapeutics for ectopic pregnancy. A blood-based biomarker that accurately identifies an ectopic pregnancy could be used to offer early diagnostic certainty in ca...

Aims: Preterm labor (PTL) is one of the most important medical community problems and the main cause of infant morbidity and mortality after congenital anomalies. Several studies have shown a significant association between the abnormal levels of quadruple test with PTL. However, there is no general agreement on the value of quadruple tests for predicting complications among studies. This study...

Qualitative and quantitative serum human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) tests are used to diagnose pregnancy. We assessed physicians' perceptions and compared turnaround times (TATs) and performance characteristics of both tests. We surveyed 1,058 physicians about their perceptions of hCG tests. Seven months of TAT data were analyzed. hCG was measured in all qualitative samples. Pregnancy status ...

OBJECTIVES (a) To test the sensitivity and specificity of measuring fasting plasma glucose levels (FPG) as a screening test for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). (b) To compare predicting levels of FPG levels with the one-hour, oral 50g non-fasting glucose challenge test (GCT) for predicting GDM. METHODS One thousand and six hundred pregnant women from the Health Centres, antenatal clinics...

BACKGROUND Midwives can play a key role in promoting the oral health of pregnant women and assessing their oral health status. A maternal oral assessment tool (MOS) was developed and pilot tested by the study investigators to assist midwives in this role and the results were promising. The aim of this study was to undertake further sensitivity and specificity assessment of the MOS tool using tw...

Investigations of noninvasive prenatal screening for aneuploidy by analysis of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) have shown high sensitivity and specificity in both high-risk and low-risk cohorts. However, the overall low incidence of aneuploidy limits the positive predictive value of these tests. Currently, the causes of false positive results are poorly understood. We investigated four pregna...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the impact of the postcoital test on the pregnancy rate among subfertile couples and on the number of other diagnostic tests and treatments. DESIGN Randomised controlled study. SETTING A university and two non-university teaching hospitals in the Netherlands. SUBJECTS New couples at infertility clinics, 1 March 1993 to 1 October 1995; randomisation to an interven...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to investigate neutrophil elastase (NE) in amniotic fluid as a potential marker for predicting pregnancy continuation. MATERIAL AND METHODS We enrolled 34 pregnant women with bulging fetal membrane during the second trimester who underwent emergent cerclage after confirming the absence of intrauterine infection (amniotic fluid glucose ≥15 mg/dL). Amnioti...