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Sera from 74 patients with acute, chronic or late-stage schistosomiasis japonica were tested in indirect immunofluorescence tests, with sera of healthy Chinese individuals serving as controls. Cryostat sections of adult Schistosoma japonicum and S. mansoni were used to determine the reactivity of sera with the parenchyma, tegument or gut of the worms. There was inconsistent reactivity between total immunoglobulin and the parenchyma during the acute and chronic stages and hardly any such reactivity in the late stage. Reactivity with the tegument was consistently positive in the acute stage (25 sera) but some chronic-stage sera (four of 32) and most late-stage sera (11 of 17) did not react. In contrast, reactivity with the gut was uniformly strong during the acute and chronic disease, whereas late-stage patients had generally lower titres and one did not react. Similar results were obtained with tests for IgA antibodies, although the titres were generally lower. The homologous reactions with S. japonicum frequently yielded higher titres than the heterologous reactions with S. mansoni, particularly with sera of generally low reactivity. Although the immunofluorescence tests showed limited value in identifying the stage of the disease in individual patients, within the study population, acute, chronic and late-stage schistosomiasis japonica could be distinguished in terms of mean titres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between pregnancy and both the susceptibility and pathogenicity of parasite infections is disputed. This study compares the prevalence and intensity (as measured by density of eggs in stool samples) of intestinal helminth infections in pregnant and control groups of women from Khon Kaen Province in the northeast of Thailand. Stool samples were taken at the end of the first, second and third trimesters of pregnancy as well as 2 months after parturition and compared for the two groups. There were no significant changes in the prevalence of any of the common helminth species during the course of pregnancy or between the pregnant and control groups. Nor was there any evidence that the density of helminth eggs in the stool samples differed between sample times or between the pregnant and control groups. Our study therefore supports the hypothesis that pregnancy does not influence the course of human infection with helminths.

Infections with Wuchereria bancrofti causing lymphatic filariasis still represent one of the major health problems in the tropics, with 120 million people infected and over 750 million exposed to this filarial parasite. We have studied lymphatic filariasis infections as part of a multi-parasite survey in a village community in the savannah of northern Nigeria. We analysed serum samples from 341 individuals aged 5-70 years, detecting a W. bancrofti circulating antigen using the commercially available ICT Filariasis card test. The prevalence of infections was 10% and clearly age-dependent, increasing from below 2% in children to over 20% in subjects older than 40 years. Measuring IgG4 antibodies against the recombinant W. bancrofti antigen SXP1 showed that 36% of all tested individuals had been at least exposed to the parasite. Antibody levels also increased very significantly with age. A further analysis measuring Onchocerca volvulus-specific IgG4 antibodies showed a very significant association between infections with O. volvulus and those with W. bancrofti. Our data show that infections with W. bancrofti in Nigeria are still a frequently occurring health problem, since they are more prevalent than previously reported, and that individuals with an O. volvulus infection are more often infected with W. bancrofti than expected statistically., (Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.)

Evaluated in this paper is clinical experience recorded from 70 young women, aged between 14 and 27 years, with post-pill syndrome. The aetiology of post-pill amenorrhoea was found to be closely related to lability of cycle prior to pill-taking. Nearly 60 per cent of all patients had used Non-Ovlon. 10 patients had used Sequenz-Ovosiston. The prognosis of iatrogenic normogonadotrophic ovarian insufficiency was found to depend on the basal oestrogen level, reaction of corpus endometrium, and serum prolactin. Pregnancy was successfully induced in 53 per cent of all patients who wanted to have a child. The aboration rate accounted for 7.4 per cent. Clinical examination of the newborns did not give any clue as to accumulation of congenital malformations. Roughly 40 per cent of all patients remained to be anovulatory, in spite of intensive treatment.

More seldom allergic patients suffer from cancer than healthy ones. The level of serum-IgE of these patients is higher whereas IgE of cancerous patients is often lower. 16 patients with gynaecologic cancer and without allergic anamnesis were examined and the results were compared with references in literature. A possible importance of IgE for the physical prevention against tumor is being discussed.

Progesterone and unconjugated estriol are radioimmunologically estimated in 42 diabetic patients in amniotic fluid and serum during last weeks of pregnancy and in the course of oxytocin-induced parturition. As unconjugated estriol rises in progressing weeks of pregnancy progesterone remains unchanged in both investigated fluids. The quotient progesterone unconjugated estriol correlates with affection to labour. There is no statistically significant change in both steroid hormones during induced labour.

Investigations on the influence of the diuresis effect upon the results of quantitative oestrogen and HCG determinations revealed that the oestrogen values increase with the 24-hour amount of urine. Oliguria and polyuria affect oestrogen excretion to a considerable extent; they have to be taken into account in prenatal diagnosis of pregnancy. Comparative HCG checks show that HCG concentration also varies considerable depending on fluid excretion. Diagnostic errors can be diminished or avoided when the quantitative HCG assessment is made on the 24-hour urine and then referred to the whole amount of urine.

Minprostin-F2 alpha was injected intravenously to 20 women, and 15(S)-15-methyl-PG F2 alpha was intramuscularly injected to 19 women to induce abortion. All patients were in early pregnancy, none of them beyond the seventh week. The steroid hormones 17 beta-oestradiol and progesterone were reduced to 75 per cent of their initial concentrations in all cases of successful induction. HCG levels in plasma dropped with some delay.--The results are likely to suggest that the above decline of steroid hormones in response to abortion induced in early pregnancy was attributable to secondary regression of corpus luteum.

24 mothers were given 4.0 mg. of dexamethasone one times daily for 3 days during the last trimester of pregnancy. Serial serum human placental lactogen (HPL) determinations were made by radioimmunoassay before, during and post the treatment. Dexamethasone did not change the HPL level.

Among 32459 deliveries from 1961 to 1975 at the Gynaecology Department of the Martin Luther University in Halle there were 194 adolescent mothers under 18 years of age. This corresponds to a percentage of 0,6%.--These "adolescents" were compared with an equal group of primiparae between 22 and 24 years of age.--There were no essential differences in the delivery procedure between the adolescent and the control groups. Operations to speed up delivery had to be performed less often in the adolescent than in the control group. The quota of premature deliveries amongst the adolescents which stood a 16%, was higher than in the control group, where the quota amounted only 9%. In both groups no differences were found in the perinatal mortality rate.

Prolactin and, to some extent, the gonadotrophins were determined in the serum of 50 patients with amenorrhoea (oligomenorrhoea) and or galactorrhoea. -- Hyperprolactinaemia was safely recorded from 32 cases. That relatively high number of patients with hyperprolactinaemia was attributed to retrograde examination of sterility patients who had been resistant to therapy. -- In the presence of galactorrhoea prolactin levels were increased in nine of 16 patients, whereas the same levels were increased in only three of 18 patients with postpill amenorrhoea. -- Gonadotrophin levels usually dropped in concomitance with marked hyperprolactinaemia, but they failed to deviate from normal with moderate prolactin increase. -- The above results are likely to underscore the importance of prolactin to the diagnosis of gynaecological endocrinopathies.

In 100 patients a total of 171 PG determinations in the menstrual blood was performed under standardized conditions. The primary PGE1 and PGF2alpha were determined by RIA. The evaluation of the analysis of the sexual hormones resulted in a group with a biphasic cycle without dysmenorrhoea and a group with a biphasic cycle with dysmenorrhoea. Highly significant differences (p less than 0.01) were found in the PGF2alpha concentration in menstrual blood between a group of healthy women and one of patients with dysmenorrhoea. In dysmenorrhoea the ratio of the PGs investigated is shifted in favour of PGF2alpha. Indomethacin can decrease the PGF2alpha levels in dysmenorrhoea up to 15% (p less than 0.01). All treated patients reported that their conditions had improved. Five out of seven women were completely without any complaints.

Bromocriptinee has proved to be effective in treatment of patients for hyperprolactinaemic diseases. The authors suggest that in gynaecology it should be used, first of all, in treating patients for hyperprolactinaemic sterility and galactorrhoea and, in extraordinary cases, for postpartum inhibition of lactation. Bromocriptin should be prescribed only at endocrinological institutions with facilities for follow-up control by serum prolactin assay.

In early pregnancy up the 7th week of pregnancy PGF2alpha was infused and 15(S)-methyl-PGF2alpha was applied i. m. to induce menstruation in 20 or 19 cases, respectively. In the tested form of application 15(S)-methyl-PGF2alpha is effective in 89 per cent of the cases and in 74 per cent complete abortion was achieved. PGF2alpha produced bleeding in 80 per cent only and complete abortion in 55 per cent. The differences in these two groups were not statistically significant. The steroid hormones estradiol and progesterone decrease in a successful application of PGs for induction of abortion and reach a value of 75 per cent at the onset of bleeding. The LH concentration in plasma becomes smaller too. In some cases there is a temporary increase in hormones shortly after starting treatment. The results could indicate that the considerable decrease in hormones before the onset of bleeding might be caused by an alteration of the corpus luteum, which is effective during early pregnancy.