Infertility can arise as a consequence of treatment of oncological conditions. The parallel and continued improvement in both the management of oncology and fertility cases in recent times has brought to the forefront the potential for fertility preservation in patients being treated for cancer. Many survivors will maintain their reproductive potential after the successful completion of treatment for cancer. However total body irradiation, radiation to the gonads, and certain high dose chemotherapy regimens can place women at risk for acute ovarian failure or premature menopause and men at risk for temporary or permanent azoospermia. Providing information about risk of infertility and possible interventions to maintain reproductive potential are critical for the adolescent and young adult population at the time of diagnosis. There are established means of preserving fertility before cancer treatment; specifically, sperm cryopreservation for men and in vitro fertilization and embryo cryopreservation for women. Several innovative techniques are being actively investigated, including oocyte and ovarian follicle cryopreservation, ovarian tissue transplantation, and in vitro follicle maturation, which may expand the number of fertility preservation choices for young cancer patients. Fertility preservation may also require some modification of cancer therapy; thus, patients’ wishes regarding future fertility and available fertility preservation alternatives should be discussed before initiation of therapy.

Background: Gestational age is the common term used during pregnancy to describe how far advanced is the pregnancy. In the second and third trimesters, estimation of gestational age is accomplished by measuring the biparietal diameter, head circumference, abdominal circumference, and femur length. The transverse cerebellar diameter (TCD) may serve as a reliable predictor of gestational age (GA) of the fetus and a standard against which aberrations in other fetal parameters can be compared.Methods: The study was conducted in the tertiary care teaching hospital from July 2016 to March 2017. 200 pregnant women of gestational age 15-40 weeks of pregnancy referred from Dept of Obs and Gynae for antenatal scan comprised our study sample.Results: Age of women ranged from 18 to 43 years with maximum number of patients aged 26-30 years. Maximum cases with clinical suspicion for IUGR were in gestational age >36-40 weeks (50%). Evaluation of difference in actual and estimated gestational age between normal and actual gestational age showed that for normal pregnancy as well as in IUGR pregnancies mean difference between estimated and actual gestational age was minimum in TCD followed by other established parameters.Conclusions: TCD being a stable parameter irrespective of growth status of fetus, provides a basis for its usefulness as a ratio to predict IUGR and other perainatal outcomes as used in several studies. Thus, despite not being a direct marker for IUGR it can serve as a surrogate marker for detection of IUGR and another adverse perinatal outcome.

Background: Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) has evolved as a major diagnostic and prognostic tool in cervical cancer. The aim of our study was to compare the change in mean apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value before and after concurrent chemoradiation therapy (CCRT) in carcinoma cervix thereby establishing its role as a cancer biomarker. Materials and Methods: A hospital-based prospective study was conducted in 35 patients diagnosed with cervical cancer. All 35 patients underwent pelvic MRI before and after 6 months of CCRT. The study was done over a period of 12 months. Conventional axial and sagittal T2 imaging was followed by DW-MRI. In the axial DW/ADC images at “ b -value” of 800 s/mm 2 , a circular region of interest was drawn covering more than 60% of the tumor volume to calculate the ADC values. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (version 21.0) was used for statistical evaluation. Chi-square test, independent samples t -test, and analysis of variance were used to analyze the data. The results are depicted as frequencies (number), proportion (percentages), and mean ± standard deviation. Results: Pre-CCRT mean ADC value was 0.814 × 10 −3 mm 2 /s. Post-CCRT mean ADC value was 1.294 × 10 −3 mm 2 /s. Mean ADC value of patients having lymph node involvement and parametrial extension was significantly lower when compared with those without lymph node involvement and parametrial extension ( P = 0.001). Nonresponders with residual lesion had lower ADC values than responders with no residual lesion. An interesting and unique observation was that pre-CCRT mean ADC value of responders was higher than nonresponders. Conclusion: An increase in mean ADC value of 0.480 × 10 −3 mm 2 /s after CCRT was found to be statistically significant ( P < 0.001) thereby proving its role as an imaging biomarker in cancer cervix.

Background: Normal pressure hydrocephalus is a very gloomy entity. The objective of this study is to analyse aqueductal velocity parameters by phase contrast MRI CSF flowmetry in Idiopathic Normal pressure hydrocephalus patients (NPH).Methods: This study consists of 72 participants which included 36 patients and 36 matched healthy controls. The study stretched over three years in multicentre tertiary research hospitals using 3T MRI scanner. Both normal MRI sequences and phase contrast CSF flowmetry was done for both group of patients and result analysed using SPSS 17 software.Results: Mean age of patients in our study is 61.07 years. The most common clinical symptom was gait unsteadiness in our study. Most common conventional MRI finding was ventriculomegaly with transependymal seepage of CSF. Amongst CSF flowmetry parameters Aqueductal stroke volume, peak systolic velocity, mean systolic velocity, forward flow volume and backward flow volume were statistically significant in differentiating cases from controls.Conclusions: MRI CSF flowmetry using phase contrast method is an advanced imaging parameter which can non-invasively and reliably detect NPH. Also, it can be used to follow the response to treatment following shunting and can act as a prognostic marker.

Original Research ArticleA correlative study to evaluate the gestational age by sonological measurement of placental thickness in normal second and third trimester pregnancy Sujit Pant 1 , Sunita Dashottar 2 * INTRODUCTIONAccurate knowledge of the Gestational Age (GA) is important for the good antenatal care and the successful deliveries of babies. The most useful information provided by the obstetrics ultrasound is the accurate determination of the gestational age. 1 As significant numbers of pregnant women are unsure of their last menstrual period, determination of the gestational age mostly relies solely on sonographic measurements of the fetal parts such as the biparietal diameter (BPD), head circumference (HC), occipito-frontal diameter (OFD), ABSTRACTBackground: The dating of the pregnancy starts well before the fertilization has occurred because the gestational age is calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period (LMP). Accurate knowledge of the Gestational Age (GA) is the key for the good antenatal care and successful deliveries of babies. Menstrual history can be unreliable or misleading at many times. There may be fallacy in the measurement of the fetal biometric parameters in estimating the gestational age in some situation. So, there is a need of another parameter for supplementing the gestational age estimation with minimal error. The aim of the study was to evaluate the placental thickness as a parameter for estimation of gestational age and also to assess the growth pattern of placenta with advancing gestational age. Methods: A total of 110 pregnant women who selected randomly from the antenatal clinics (between the gestational ages from 14 weeks to 40 weeks) who did not have any maternal or fetal complications. The biometric parameters: Biparietal Diameter (BPD), Head Circumference (HC), Abdominal Circumference (AC), Femur Length (FL) and the Placental thickness (PT) were measured by ultrasound machine LOGIQ P5 unit with a curvilinear 3.5 MHz transducer. Mean value of the placental thickness along with the standard deviation (SD) and 95% confidence interval were calculated for each gestational age from 14 weeks to 40 weeks. Pearson's correlation analysis and linear regression analysis was done quantifying the relationship between the gestational age in weeks and the placental thickness in millimetres. Results:The mean values of placental thickness show a perfect positive relationship (increasing trend) with gestational age and the mean value of placental thickness almost correspond to the gestational age till 35 weeks of the gestational age and fall marginally from 36 weeks. Placental thickness showed positive and significant correlation with gestational age (P-value<0.001) and Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) of 0.990. Conclusions: Placental thickness can be an additional parameter for estimation of the gestational age as it almost corresponds with the gestational age in second and third trimesters. Also, any abnormal placental thickness for the particular gestational age shoul...