A large number of CD56(bright) natural killer (NK) cells, which comprise a very small fraction of peripheral blood lymphocytes, appear in the endometrium during the late secretory phase and early pregnancy. These cells are thought to immunologically maintain or inhibit pregnancy. However, the details regarding their contribution to the immuno-elimination systems of embryonic cells or decidual stromal cells remain unclear. Recently, leukocyte function-associated antigen-1 (LFA-1) was shown to play a critical role in the regulation of NK cytolysis in peripheral blood lymphocytes. We speculated that LFA-1 on the decidual CD56(bright) NK may be involved in the regulation of pregnancy. The expression of LFA-1 on the decidual CD56(bright) NK cells was analysed using flow cytometry with fluorescent monoclonal antibodies; CD56 (NKH1), CD16 (Fcg-R3) and CD11a (LFA-1 alpha-chain). In comparison with non-pregnant endometrium during the late secretory phase, the subpopulation of CD56(bright)CD16(-) cells in decidual lymphocytes was significantly increased during normal pregnancy, but was less than that in early pregnancy loss (P < 0.05). Furthermore, the number of CD56(bright) NK cells expressing LFA-1 was significantly higher in early pregnancy loss, and the late secretory phase, than during normal pregnancy (P < 0.05). Our results indicate that up-regulation of LFA-1 on CD56(bright) NK cells is related to spontaneous abortion or the onset of menstruation.

We previously reported that the octapeptide somatostatin (SS) analogue SMS 201-995 (SMS) unexpectedly stimulates the growth of A431 human epidermoid carcinoma cells in vitro. In the present study, we found that both SS-14 and SS-28 also stimulated the growth of A431 cells in vitro. The proliferative effect of SS-28 also stimulated the growth of A431 cells in vitro. The proliferative effect of SS-28 was greater than that of SS-14. In contrast, there was no difference in A431 cell tumor weight or area between the SMS-treated or untreated athymic, tumor-bearing mice. The serum epidermal growth factor (EGF) level of the SMS-treated mice was significantly lower than that of the untreated mice. Decreases in serum EGF may attenuate the proliferative effect of SMS in vivo.

Pregnant women are more prone to increased coagulability and, as such, venous thromboembolism (VTE) tends to occur 10 times more frequently in pregnant women than in the general population, with the rate ranging between 0.05% and 0.3% [1]. About 20% of maternal deaths are believed to be caused by VTE in the USA. Here, we report a case of a pregnant woman who developed cardiac arrest because of pulmonary embolism (PE) and subsequently underwent cesarean section. Case report A 39-year-old woman was referred to our hospital, at 23 weeks of gestation, for treatment of preterm labor. During hospitalization, she was placed on bed rest, with permission to stand and walk only for personal hygiene care and defecation without additional use of compression stockings. Four weeks later she suddenly complained of shortness of breath. Her D-dimer also increased to 5.2 mg/mL. Concerning the radiation exposure to the fetus, although agreeing to contrast computed tomography (CT) of the chest, agreement was not obtained for radiation to the uterus. We diagnosed PE. In the absence of evidence of deep vein thrombus of the lower extremities on venous echography, the patient was treated with continuous unfractionated heparin infusion. Activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) was continuously administered 1.5-2.5 times as a guide. An inferior

We investigated whether the expression of progesterone-binding sites on human sperm acrozomal membrane is correlated with in vitro fertilization outcome. In motile sperm we evaluated percentage of progesterone-binding sperm (%PB) and of acrozome-reacted sperm (%AR), collected from 39 male partners undergoing an in vitro fertilization program (IVF), by labeling the sperm with progesterone-conjugated BSA-labeled FITC (P-BSA-FITC) and pisum sativum agglutinin labeled-FITC (PSA-FITC). Mean %PB in 30 fertilized cases was significantly higher than that in 9 fertilization failures (9.0 ± 5.1 vs. 22.3 ± 14.8%, p < 0.01). Furthermore, %PB shows a strong positive correlation with fertilization rate in IVF (r = 0.44) and %AR (r = 0.62), but not with sperm concentration and sperm motility. These results suggest that the expression of progesterone receptor on the sperm was related to the sperm fertilizability, and the evaluation of %PB was useful for predicting the fertilization outcome of IVF.

It is difficult to assess the healing of the medial malleolar stress fracture. We describe a case of medial malleolar stress fracture which was monitored its healing with repeated magnetic resonance images .