Pregnancy after intravenous pulsatile gonadotropin-releasing hormone in a hyperprolactinaemic woman resistant to treatment with dopamine agonists.

It is difficult to achieve pregnancy in hyperprolactinaemic patients in whom prolactin inhibiting agents are ineffective. Medical treatment with bromocriptine, lisuride and the new agent CV 205-502 (quinagolide) was unsuccessful in normalizing hyperprolactinaemia in a 28 year-old woman to treat anovulatory infertility. Repeated Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was normal, with no images suggestive of prolactin adenoma. A live child was born after pulsatile GnRH treatment despite persistently elevated prolactin levels; normal MRI and decreased prolactin levels were observed after pregnancy. In summary, successful pregnancy can be obtained with pulsatile GnRH treatment in women resistant to old and new medical treatments of hyperprolactinaemia.

Proton NMR studies of tissue water phases during chemical carcinogenesis in rats.

The water content, relative ratio of bound water, mean 1H NMR spin-lattice relaxation time T1, and T1 of bound water fraction were studied on rat liver during the course of cancer induction by diethylnitrosamine. Using the FETS model proposed by Fung, the results were discussed according to histology. Liver T1 increase was correlated with water content and a regular decrease of T1b was observed during the course of hepatocarcinogenesis, associated with a shift of the position of the minimum of T1b toward the negative temperatures. A biphasic decay of T1b was also noticed in the presence of hepatocarcinoma nodules.

1H- and 2H-NMR study of bovine serum albumin solutions.

Frozen, native and denatured bovine serum albumin solutions have been studied with a wide-band NMR pulse spectrometer. Both macromolecular and water protons spin-spin and spin-lattice relaxation times--t2m, t1m, t2w, t1w--have been measured between 170 and 360 K. In the native sample, the t2m process is the tumbling rate of the bovine serum albumin molecules. It gives to the spin-lattice relaxation an omega 0(-2) frequency dependence at room temperature in the studied frequency range, 6-90 MHz. An additional process contributes to t1m-1; it arises from internal backbone or segmental motions and provides a lower frequency behaviour. On denaturation, bovine serum albumin molecules lose their tumbling motion and form a rigid network, while internal backbone motions seem unaffected. Calorimetric Cp measurement confirms the occurrence of a phase transition upon denaturation. 1H and 2H spin-lattice relaxation times of water protons depend mainly on bound water mobility. 1H and 2H t2w depend also on the tertiary structure of bovine serum albumin and on its mobility, because of a fast exchange process between water and some protein protons (or deutons), while a cross-relaxation process between protein and water protons contributes to 1H t1w. Denaturation has no influence on bound water motional properties and bound water population.

Nuclear magnetic resonance study of cancer: systemic effect on the proton relaxation times (T1 and T2) of human serum.

Increased spin-lattice T1 and spin-spin T2 proton relaxation times of malignant tissues are by now well documented phenomena. A "systemic effect" of cancer, evidenced by NMR, has been demonstrated in different experimental models. The present study was undertaken to examine systemic effect in man by measuring serum relaxation times and related biochemical variables in 224 healthy control individuals and 311 patients with solid tumors at different stages of growth. The increase in T1 values is statistically significant in the advanced cancer group but not in the nonevolutive disease group, compared to healthy control group. Variations of T2 values are not significant in this study. There is no correlation of T1 increase with serum ions, total proteins or protein fractions.