Mesenteric desmoid-type fibromatosis causing secondary hypertension in a young woman.

This report describes an 18-year-old woman presenting with abdominal distension, left flank pain, and hypertension. She had a huge abdominal mass, diagnosed as a mesenteric desmoid-type fibromatosis, causing compression of the left external iliac vessels and ureter, as well as elevated renin concentration and hypertension. After surgical removal of the mass, all signs improved including hypertension.

The effect of Vero cell coculture on the development of mouse embryos exposed to monoclonal antibodies specific for mammalian heat shock protein 60.

Heat shock proteins (HSP) have been identified as an important factor of a very complex and highly conserved cellular defense mechanism to preserve cell survival under adverse environmental conditions. HSP 60 are immunodominant antigens of microbe such as Chlamydia trachomatis and have a potentiality to become a target antigen due to antigenic similarity between chlamydial and human HSP. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of Vero cell coculture to anti-HSP 60 on the early mouse embryo development in vitro. The 2-cell mouse embryos (ICR) were cultured and mouse embryo development was observed every 24 hr for 3 days. 45% and 22.1% of the embryos cultured in Ham's F-10 plus anti HSP 60 with Vero cells developed to the 4- to 8- cell stage (day 1) and morular stage (day 2) as compared with 29.2% and 2.7% of those cultured without Vero cells respectively. But at day 3, the beneficial effect of Vero cells was not noted. These findings suggest that Vero cells have some roles to overcome the detrimental effect of anti-HSP 60 to some degree. These results suggest that Vero cells coculture will promote reproductive outcome in patient previously sensitized to microbial (e.g. Chlamydia trachomatis) HSP 60.

No association between HLA-DRB1 alleles and susceptibility to advanced stage endometriosis in a Korean population.

BACKGROUND: The aetiological factors of endometriosis still remain poorly understood. While there is growing evidence that genetic and immunological factors play important roles in the pathogenesis of the disease, HLA-DRB1 alleles have been reported to be associated with the risk of endometriosis in Japanese populations. This study was performed to determine whether susceptibility to advanced endometriosis is also associated with HLA-DRB1 alleles in a Korean population, which is the closest ethnic group to Japanese. METHODS: We recruited 100 Korean patients with advanced endometriosis confirmed by surgical and histolological examinations. HLA-DRB1 genotyping was carried out in two steps. Low to intermediate resolution typing was performed by PCR sequence-specific oligonucleotide hybridization method, followed by high resolution typing utilizing group-specific amplification and PCR-single strand conformation polymorphism method. Distribution of HLA-DRB1 alleles was compared with that of 800 unrelated ethnically matched individuals as well as 108 healthy female subjects. RESULTS: Genotyping revealed that the distribution of HLA-DRB1 alleles in patients with advanced endometriosis was not different from that in the two control groups. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of the present study suggest that susceptibility of advanced endometriosis is not associated with HLA-DRB1 alleles in a Korean population, which is apparently not the case in the Japanese population.

Vero cell co-culture counteracts the detrimental effects of hydrosalpinx fluid on the development of mouse embryos in vitro.

Recent studies have suggested that the hydrosalpinx has a negative effect on pregnancy outcome, with markedly diminished implantation and increased early pregnancy loss. Fluid from the hydrosalpinx may leak into and accumulate in the uterine cavity. It is not clear, however if this creates a hostile local environment in the uterus for embryo implantation or exerts a direct embryotoxic effect. This study was conducted to investigate the detrimental effects of hydrosalpinx fluid (HSF) on the development of mouse embryos in vitro and to demonstrate whether Vero cells overcome these adverse effects. HSF was collected from three women with bilateral hydrosalpinx at the time of laparoscopic surgery. Collected fluid was centrifuged and the supernatant was frozen at -20 degrees C. For co-culture, Vero cells were commercially obtained in a frozen state and cultured using Ham's F10 medium. Single-cell mouse embryos (B6CBAF1) were cultured for 5 days in 0, 0.4, 0.8, and 1.2% of HSF in media with and without Vero cells and examined daily to record the number of embryos reaching expanded blastocyst and hatching stage. Co-culture of mouse embryos with Vero cells at 0.8% HSF concentration significantly enhanced embryo development, but not at 1.2% hydrosalpinx fluid concentration. These results suggest that HSF is highly embryotoxic and Vero cells are likely to overcome these detrimental effects to some degree.