Meckel-Gruber syndrome (MGS) is a rare and lethal ciliopathic disorder, with the incidence ranging between 1 in 13 000-400 000 live births. MGS is characterized by multisystem developmental malformations with the classical features of renal cystic dysplasia, occipital encephalocele and post-axial polydactyly. Except for occipital encephalocele, the CNS abnormalities associated with MGS that are...

A statistical significance test to detect seasonality of epidemiological events is described. The method is similar to that of Edwards, but makes it possible to allow for an arbitrary pattern of variation in the population risk, and also for the unequal lengths of time sectors of a cycyle of seasons (e.g., months of a year). From the test it is possible to estimate the amplitude of seasonal var...

We present a case of inferior conjunction in a rare type of conjoined twins, dicephalus in a male fetus. The male fetus was born to a 24-year-old, gravida 2, and para 0, who had medical abortion at 15 weeks of gestation due to anencephaly with meningoencephalocele revealed by ultrasound examination. The fetus was born with 2 anencephalic heads with a bifurcation of the vertebral column and pres...

Human serum normally contains only the conjugated bile salts, glycocholate, glycochenodeoxycholate, taurocholate and taurochenodeoxycholate (Sandberg et al., 1965 ; Panveliwalla et al., 1970), with a total concentration below 5pmol/l. In serum from jaundiced patients the total bile salt concentration may rise to values exceeding 250pmol/l (Panveliwalla et al., 1970). The conjugated chenodeoxych...

Anencephaly is one of the most frequent type of all fetal monstrosities. Sprangler7, who studied 11,52i births, has reported the incidence of anencephaly as I in every goo, or approximately O.1 per cent. The condition was not successfully diagnosed previous to labor until 1917, when Case2 reported such a monstrosity, recognized roentgenologically before the onset of labor. Since that time there...

Shanxi province in Northern China has one of the highest reported prevalence rates of neural tube defects (NTD) in the world. To explore the risk factors for NTDs in Shanxi province, we carried out a population-based case-control study in four selected counties with prevalence rates >10 per 1000 births during 2003. Using a multi-logistic regression model analysis (alpha = 0.10), 158 NTD cases w...