The tap test: a simple and inexpensive method for the diagnosis of fetal pulmonary maturity.

OBJECTIVE: To report our experience in the prediction of fetal lung maturity with the tap test. METHOD: Amniotic fluid was obtained from 207 pregnant women from 17-40 weeks' gestation and the tap test compared with the phospholipid profile. RESULTS: The predictive values for a mature tap test were 100%, 99.9% and 98.2% and for immature tap test were 45.8%, 50% and 56.4% at 2.5 and 10 min, respectively. CONCLUSION: The tap test is a reliable, rapid, easy, inexpensive and accurate method for detection of fetal lung maturity.

Treatment of idiopathic infertility with testosterone undecanoate. A double blind study.

This study refers to 50 couples treated for subfertility. Twenty five of these patients were treated with TU (Testosterone Ur econoate), the remaining 25 received placebo. Sperm characteristics, including ejaculate volume, pH, sperm density, morphology, motility, total testosterone, FSH, LH, DHT and E2 were evaluated both before and after treatment. A statistically significant increase of DHT levels was noticed after TU administration, whereas a marginally significant improvement of sperm morphology was present. Serum FSH concentrations, decreased significantly in the TU group whereas serum LH presented a slight but not statistically significant decrease; 4 pregnancies were achieved by the TU group whereas none were achieved by the patients belonging to the placebo group. The administration of TU per os to patients with idiopathic oligospermia presents a demonstrably positive effect.

Expression of CEA, CA-125 and SCC antigen by biological fluids associated with pregnancy.

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cancer antigen 125 (CA-125) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) antigen were measured in 56 full-termed pregnancies by enzyme-immunoassays (EIA-MEIA). The measurements were done in maternal serum (MS), umbilical cord blood (UCB) and amniotic fluid (AF) samples, during delivery. Very high antigen levels were found in AF samples (median: CEA = 124 ng/ml; CA-125 = 710 U/ml; SCC = 710 ng/ml) compared to UCB and MS. CEA and SCC showed significantly lower values in MS (0.6 and 1.7 ng/ml, respectively) than in UCB (1.6 ng/ml, P = 7.7 x 10(-9); 3.55 ng/ml, P = 6.5 x 10(-6), respectively), while CA-125 had significantly higher values in MS (6 U/ml) than in UCB (0.0 U/ml, P = 17 x 10(-6); Wilcoxon paired test). All CEA values in MS were below cut-off (less than or equal to 5 ng/ml), while 10% of CA-125 and 30% of SCC values were above cut-off (less than or equal to 35 U/ml and less than or equal to 2.5 ng/ml, respectively). Amniotic fluid CEA with meconium had higher values (P = 0.0002), while the highest CA-125 values in AF samples were found in primiparae (P = 0.02). Moreover SCC in AF samples from vaginal delivered pregnancies showed significantly higher values, compared to those from cesarean section (P = 4.2 x 10(-7); Mann-Whitney U-test). Thus, our findings suggest that pregnancy has an influence on maternal serum SCC and CA-125 values, while CEA is independent of gestation and seems to conserve its diagnostic value during pregnancy as well.