Comparison of life quality of pregnant adolescents with that of pregnant adults in Turkey

Objectives. This study aimed to determine the quality of life of pregnant adolescents aged < 20 years and pregnant adults aged between 20-29 years, to evaluate the effects of gestational periods on the quality of life, and to compare the quality of life scores of pregnant adolescents and adults

Nursing Care for Pregnant Adolescents

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73476/1/0884217503252191.pd

A New Method for Isolation of Interstitial Fluid from Human Solid Tumors Applied to Proteomic Analysis of Ovarian Carcinoma Tissue

Major efforts have been invested in the identification of cancer biomarkers in plasma, but the extraordinary dynamic range in protein composition, and the dilution of disease specific proteins make discovery in plasma challenging. Focus is shifting towards using proximal fluids for biomarker discovery, but methods to verify the isolated sample's origin are missing. We therefore aimed to develop a technique to search for potential candidate proteins in the proximal proteome, i.e. in the tumor interstitial fluid, since the biomarkers are likely to be excreted or derive from the tumor microenvironment. Since tumor interstitial fluid is not readily accessible, we applied a centrifugation method developed in experimental animals and asked whether interstitial fluid from human tissue could be isolated, using ovarian carcinoma as a model. Exposure of extirpated tissue to 106 g enabled tumor fluid isolation. The fluid was verified as interstitial by an isolated fluid:plasma ratio not significantly different from 1.0 for both creatinine and Na+, two substances predominantly present in interstitial fluid. The isolated fluid had a colloid osmotic pressure 79% of that in plasma, suggesting that there was some sieving of proteins at the capillary wall. Using a proteomic approach we detected 769 proteins in the isolated interstitial fluid, sixfold higher than in patient plasma. We conclude that the isolated fluid represents undiluted interstitial fluid and thus a subproteome with high concentration of locally secreted proteins that may be detected in plasma for diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic monitoring by targeted methods

Ovarian cancer molecular pathology.

Peer reviewe

Antibody-mediated depletion of immunosuppressive factors from ovarian carcinoma-associated ascites for investigation of paracrine versus autocrine effects

Many studies seek to explore the impact of extrinsic soluble factors present in serum, interstitial fluids or cell-conditioned media on cells in vitro. A convenient approach to elucidate the effects of a particular factor is its selective neutralization. However, intrinsic production of soluble factors such as cytokines by the cultured cells is common and can have an impact via autocrine mechanisms. The addition of cytokine-specific neutralizing antibodies leads to neutralization of the targeted factors irrespective of their source and affects paracrine and autocrine effects alike. Thus, neutralization assays are not suitable to irrevocably demonstrate that the examined factors exert their effect via a paracrine mechanism. We were interested in investigating the impact of immunosuppressive factors present in ovarian carcinoma-associated ascites by dissecting paracrine versus autocrine effects of interleukin 10 (IL-10) and prostaglandin E2 (PGE(2)) on the activation of monocyte-derived dendritic cells (DC). We explored several methods of depletion based on introduction of the neutralizing antibodies bound to beads. Here we describe the pitfalls of the investigated depletion approaches and show the importance of monitoring the presence of residual neutralizing antibodies in the sample upon depletion, which impacts on the suitability of the approach to distinguish paracrine from autocrine effects. Only one of three investigated approaches showed no dislocation of neutralizing antibody from the beads into the sample. This method, which is based on covalently linking antibody to magnetic beads harbouring a reactive group allowed for the complete removal of the investigated factors from ascites and represents an elegant tool to elucidate immunoregulatory or -stimulatory cytokine networks in considerably more depth than the use of neutralizing antibodies in cell cultures alone can contribute