Aims: To determine if dental bacterial DNA are present in the amniotic cavity of healthy pregnant women undergoing an elective caesarean section at term utilising culture independent techniques. Methods: Pregnant Australian women undergoing an elective caesarean section were recruited. Women completed questionnaires addressing demographics, past and current pregnancies and medical history. One ...

Contamination of amniotic fluid samples with maternal or fetal red blood cells occurs in approximately 500 of amniocenteses. Culturing these samples for fetal chromosome analysis is often difficult, particularly when blood clots are present, because many of the amniotic fluid cells may become trapped within the clot. The combined use of trypsin to break up the clot and of ficoll-based lymphocyt...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate amniotic fluid glucose, matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9, interleukin (IL)-6, and IL-12 for diagnosing subclinical chorioamnionitis in women with preterm labor. METHODS Forty-four women in preterm labor at 22-35 weeks gestation with suspected subclinical chorioamnionitis underwent amniocentesis. Amniotic fluid analysis included Gram stain, culture, and determination of g...

BACKGROUND We evaluated the efficiency of amniotic membrane grafts (AMGs) for reconstructing the conjunctival surface following excision of corneal and conjunctival intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). METHODS This was a retrospective, noncomparative, interventional study. Five eyes in 5 patients were treated between April 1996 and September 2002 with the same procedure to apply amniotic membrane...

Dot immunobinding assays for the quantitation of two classes of proteins associated with lung surfactant phospholipids in human amniotic fluid are described. With the use of these assays it was determined that the two classes of surfactant proteins accumulate in the amniotic fluid at the same rate. The concentrations of disaturated phosphatidylcholine and the surfactant-associated proteins are ...

A rapid (30-min) semiautomated continuous-flow procedure is described for use in assessing the phospholipids of the particulate ("lamellar body") fraction of human amniotic fluid. The method is based on measuring the difference in fluorescence of 1,6,-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene added to amniotic fluid before and after micropore filtration. The filtration step removes "lamellar body" particles, w...

Cholesterol was extracted from amniotic fluid, saponified, converted to its trimethylsilyl derivative, and gas chromatographed, with cholesteryl acetate as the internal standard. The method is sufficiently accurate and precise for use with the range of concentrations of cholesterol found in amniotic fluid (5 to 48 mg/litre). Total cholesterol was measured in amniotic fluids collected at differe...

Purpose To report the outcome of self-retained amniotic membrane after debridement in recurrent dendritic keratitis. Observations A 70-year-old female with a recurrent dendritic corneal ulcer received debridement followed by placement of self-retained amniotic membrane. Five days after treatment, the patient experienced a complete resolution of symptoms, marked reduction of inflammation, comp...

Cryopreservation of mesenchymal stem cells from amniotic fluid is of clinical importance, as these cells can be harvested during the prenatal period and stored for use in treatments. We examined the behavior of mesenchymal stem cells from human amniotic fluid in culture that had been subjected to cryopreservation. We assessed chromosomal stability through karyotype analysis, determined whe...

Literature concerning procoagulant activity of the amniotic fluid and pathomechanism of amniotic fluid embolism (AFE) was surveyed and a new concept of its pathogenesis, called the integrated concept of AFE, was presented. According to this concept, two components of the amniotic fluid are involved: 1) apoptosis-affected amniotic cells showing a special role in the initiation of disseminated in...