Assessment of Twin Fetal Exposure to Environmental Magnetic and Electromagnetic Fields.

Fetal development is vital in the human lifespan. Therefore, it is essential to characterize exposure by a series of typical environmental magnetic and electromagnetic fields. In particular, there has recently been a sharp increase in the twin birth rate. However, lack of appropriate models has prohibited dosimetric evaluation, restricting characterization of the impact of these environmental factors on twins. The present study developed two whole-body pregnant models of 31 and 32 weeks of gestation with twin fetuses and explored several typical exposure scenarios, including 50-Hz uniform magnetic field exposure, local 125-kHz magnetic field (MF), and 13.56-MHz electromagnetic field exposure, as well as wideband planewave radiofrequency (RF) exposure from 20 to 6000 MHz. Finally, dosimetric results were derived. Compared to the singleton pregnancy with similar weeks of gestation, twin fetuses were overexposed at 50-Hz uniform MF, but they were probably underexposed in the RF scenarios with frequencies for wireless communications. Furthermore, the twin fetuses manifested large dosimetric variability compared to the singleton, which was attributed to the incident direction and fetal position. Based on the analysis, the dosimetric results over the entire gestation period were estimated. The results can be helpful to estimate the risk of twin-fetal exposure to electromagnetic fields and examine the conservativeness of the international guidelines.© 2022 Bioelectromagnetics Society.

Circulating adhesion molecules in patients with Keshan disease and their relationship with Coxsackie B virus infection.

This study determined the levels of serum soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) and soluble vascular cell adhesion molecular-1 (sVCAM-1) in patients with different types of Keshan disease (KD), examined the relationship between Coxsackie B virus-specific IgM antibody (CBV-IgM) and sICAM-1 or sVCAM-1 in KD patients, and investigated the role of these adhesion molecules in the pathogenesis of KD and their clinical implications. The levels of serum sICAM-1, sVCAM-1 and CBV-IgM were measured by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 22 patients with chronic Keshan disease (CKD), 27 with latent Keshan disease (LKD) and 28 healthy controls. The subjects in different groups were adjusted for sex and age. Echocardiography was adopted to determine left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in 22 patients with CKD. The results showed that CKD patients had significantly higher levels of sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1 than LKD patients and healthy controls (P<0.01 for all). And there was significant difference in the levels of the 2 adhesion molecules between LKD patients and healthy controls (P<0.05). A negative correlation was found between LVEF and sICAM-1 or sVCAM-1 in CKD patients. The percentage of CBV-specific IgM positive individuals in KD patients was significantly higher than that of healthy controls. In CVB-specific IgM positive patients, the levels of serum sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1 were significantly greater than those in CBV-specific IgM negative counterpart. It was concluded that the increase in the levels of sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1 suggests the progression of inflammation in KD. sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1 can promote the development of myocardial pathology and lead to poor myocardial function. The increased serum sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1 in KD patients may be related to CBV infection.