Role of maternal serum ferritin as a predictive marker in intrauterine growth restriction

Background: Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is most common and distressing complication for both obstetrician and neonatologist. Measurement of maternal serum ferritin has also been used as a predictive marker of increase risk of IUGR. In pregnancy, ferritin level decreases with advancing gestation. Its lowest level is seen around 30-32 weeks of gestational age after which its concentration reaches plateau level.Methods: Total 326 antenatal women enrolled in the study. Maternal serum samples of all women were taken at 25th week and again at 30-32 weeks in trace free mineral evacuated tubes for assessment of serum ferritin by chemiluminescence. Mean of both values was calculated.Results: Mean ferritin value of women with average for gestational age neonates was 15.49 ng/ml and women with growth restricted neonates was 19.71 ng/ml. The women with mean serum ferritin above 20 ng/ml, were 6.26 times more likely to have asymmetrically growth restricted baby and 4.47 times more likely to have a symmetrically growth restricted baby when compared to women with serum ferritin value less then <20 ng/ml.Conclusions: In our study negative correlation was found between the value of serum ferritin and neonatal birth weight. In future large randomized control trial is needed to found association between maternal serum ferritin and IUGR.

TOpic: rare and special cases, the real "Strange cases"

Introduction: The bladder hernia represents approximately 1-3% of all inguinal hernias, where patients aged more than 50 years have a higher incidence (10%). Many factors contribute to the development of a bladder hernia, including the presence of a urinary outlet obstruction causing chronic bladder distention, the loss of bladder tone, pericystitis, the perivesical bladder fat protrusion and the obesity

Water-Based Couplants for General Purpose Use for Ultrasonic NDT Applications

935-939A study on the newly developed couplant liquid and gel suitable for ultrasonic NDT inspection is reported. Results of the measurements of various physical parameters like viscosity, density, ultrasonic velocity, etc. which have direct influence on acoustic coupling, are reported. With the help of the measured ultrasonic velocity and the acoustic impedance of the newly developed couplants, the results have been discussed alongwith theoretical considerations. It is indicated that the newly developed couplants have better transmission coefficient and give 3 dB better coupling, as compared to the conventionally used liquids. These couplants offer many other advantages and have potential applications in industry

Primary measurement of total ultrasonic power with improved accuracy in rf voltage measurement

Out of the various existing ultrasonic power measurement techniques, the radiation force balance method using microbalance is most widely used in low power (below 1 W) regime. The major source of uncertainty associated with this technique is the error in ac voltage measurement applied to the transducer for the generation of ultrasonic waves. The sources that deteriorate the ac voltage measurement accuracy include cable length and impedance mismatch. We introduce a new differential peak to peak measurement approach to reduce the ac voltage measurement error. The method holds the average peak amplitude of each polarity. Ultralow offset difference amplifier is used to measure peak to peak voltage. The method is insensitive to the variations in the dc offset of the source. The functionality of this method has been tested and compared with the conventional rf voltage measurement method. The output of this proposed technique is dc, which can be measured with an error of less than 0.1%