Liesegang rings and endometriosis.

Liesegang rings (LRs) are acellular, ringlike structures that may from within and around inflamed or necrotic tissue. LRs are most commonly found within the kidneys, synovium, and eyelid and in association with pelvic inflammatory disease and other infectious processes. LRs are only rarely found within the female genital tract, usually within endometriotic cysts or around areas of chronic inflammation. Three additional patients with LRs associated with endometriosis are described. In one of them, LRs occurred at the edge of an endometriotic cyst adjacent to a well-differentiated endometrioid adenocarcinoma of the ovary. All cases were characterized by the presence of multiple eosinophilic, sharply demarcated ringlike structures that were highlighted by the periodic acid-Schiff method. LRs within the female genital tract, which appear to be closely related to endometriosis, should be distinguished from both benign or malignant processes.

[When the natives are our neighbors].

PIP: The US debate over the ethics of abortion is the context for this discussion of problems in reporting the results of research when the topic is a controversial social movement on which the researcher and members of the academic community hold strong personal views. The author worked with local right-to-life and prochoice activists in Fargo, North Dakota, in the early 1980s. This article describes the political climate in those years after the election of Reagan to the presidency, as well as the composition of the prolife movement and its emergence with the New Right in the 1970s. The local scope of much right-to-life activity in that era made it an appropriate topic for ethnographic research using participant-observation techniques. The collective portrait of local prolife activists in Fargo was more complex than their stereotype of reactionary housewives left behind by social change would suggest. Right-to-lifers are often considered hostile to feminism, but a large part of their rhetoric actually covered the same ground. Much of the right-to-life program can be interpreted as the expression of a desire to reform the most dehumanizing aspects of contemporary capitalist culture. From this point of view, prolifers are more similar to their prochoice opponents than to their presumed New Right allies, who prefer a more libertarian social philosophy. Activists on both sides of the debate share a common sociohistorical context providing common references, particularly regarding procreation and sexuality. The debate has a dialectical quality in that a large part consists of reactions to the positions of the other side. Militants on both sides agree on such points as the need for equal pay for equal work and the need to make the economic system more responsive to the needs and responsibilities of women. The credibility of the author's findings was questioned by colleagues, which prompted reflection on the presentation of results of research on a controversial group belonging to the same society. The initial strategy of attempting to serve as a mediator between opposing camps by discovering common concerns was replaced by an attempt to allow the militants to present their own positions through extensive quotations. 21 interviews with prolife and 14 with prochoice activists constituted formulations of what the subjects considered models of the place of reproduction, motherhood, and work in the lives of American women.^ieng

The politics of reproduction.

PIP: The topic of human reproduction encompasses events throughout the human and especially female life-cycle as well as ideas and practices surrounding fertility, birth, and child care. Most of the scholarship on the subject, up through the 1960s, was based on cross-cultural surveys focused on the beliefs, norms, and values surrounding reproductive behaviors. Multiple methodologies and subspecialties, and fields like social history, human biology, and demography were utilized for the analysis. The concept of the politics of reproduction synthesizes local and global perspectives. The themes investigated include: the concept of reproduction, population control, and the internationalization of state and market interests (new reproductive technologies); social movements and contested domains; medicalization and its discontents; fertility and its control; adolescence and teen pregnancy; birth; birth attendants; the construction of infancy and the politics of child survival; rethinking the demographic transition; networks of nurturance; and meanings of menopause. The medicalization of reproduction is a central issue of studies of birth, midwifery, infertility, and reproductive technologies. Scholars have also analyzed different parts of the female life-cycle as medical problems. Other issues worth analysis include the internationalization of adoption and child care workers; the crisis of infertility of low-income and minority women who are not candidates for expensive reproductive technologies; the concerns of women at high risk for HIV whose cultural status depends on their fertility; questions of reproduction concerning, lesbians and gay men (artificial insemination and discrimination in child rearing); the study of menopause; and fatherhood. New discourse analysis is used to analyze state eugenic policies; conflicts over Western neocolonial influences in which women's status as childbearers represent nationalist interests; fundamentalist attacks on abortion rights; and the AIDS crisis.^ieng

Hyperprolactinemia in clinically asymptomatic, fertile men: report of two cases.

Although the role of prolactin (PRL) in men is undefined, hyperprolactinemia has been associated with decreased reproductive potential. Two healthy, fertile, asymptomatic men with hyperprolactinemia are reported. Both men had normal puberty. Both were euthyroid and had normal gonadotropin levels and androgen profiles. Semen analyses were normal and both had fathered children. The serum PRL level (mean +/- standard error of the mean) (N = 5) of subject 1 was 48 +/- 12 ng/mL, and of subject 2 was 214 +/- 5 ng/mL. Sella turcica computed tomography scans with contrast were normal. The two subjects underwent a thyrotropin-releasing hormone stimulation test. Serum PRL and TSH were measured by radioimmunoassay. At time 0 and at 15 minutes, PRL bioactivity was measured in the Nb2 node rat lymphoma assay. Both subjects showed a normal TSH response to thyrotropin-releasing hormone. Subject 1 had baseline PRL immunoactivity and bioactivity measuring 41 and 50 ng/mL, respectively, peaking at 76 and 70 ng/mL 15 minutes after infusion of thyrotropin-releasing hormone. Subject 2 had baseline PRL immunoactivity of 200 ng/mL and bioactivity of 67 ng/mL, neither of which were altered by infusion of thyrotropin-releasing hormone. Administration of L-dopa decreased the serum PRL of subject 1 from 33 to 7 ng/mL, but had no clinically significant effect in subject 2. Prolactin and gonadotropin secretion may be dissociated in men so that hyperprolactinemia may not always manifest as reproductive dysfunction.

The effect of relaxin on calcium fluxes in the rat uterus.

Relaxin is a polypeptide hormone that inhibits rat uterine contractions. To test the hypothesis that the mechanism of action of this effect may involve shifts in calcium ions, the biologic action of relaxin on isolated rat uterine horns was directly correlated with measurements of 45Ca2+ efflux from and uptake into the tissues. Kinetic analysis demonstrated that the efflux of 45Ca2+ from rat uterine horns was significantly faster when tissue was incubated with 25 ng/ml relaxin as compared with control tissues incubated with no relaxin. In addition, at the end of the efflux experiments, control uteri contained 3.9% of the starting 45Ca2+, whereas the relaxin-treated uteri contained only 2.55%, indicating greater total Ca2+ efflux from the relaxin-treated horns (p less than 0.05). The effect of relaxin on 45Ca2+ uptake by uterine tissue was also studied. Analysis of uptake curves by linear regression demonstrated that relaxin treatment leads to less total uptake of 45Ca2+ in the uterine tissue, although the differences are not statistically significant. These experiments demonstrate that relaxin inhibition of rat uterine contractions in vitro is associated with a decrease in intracellular free Ca2+, caused, at least in part, by the promotion of Ca2+ efflux. These results represent the first step in defining the mechanism of action of this hormone.

The effect of relaxin and prostaglandin E2 on the motility of human spermatozoa.

Relaxin and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) are present in human semen and have been shown to affect sperm motility. The authors further examined the effects of porcine relaxin and PGE2 on the motility of human spermatozoa. A dose-response study revealed that PGE2 at a concentration of 25 micrograms/ml is most effective in improving the motility of washed human sperm. Relaxin (100 ng/ml), PGE2 (25 micrograms/ml), or the two combined have no effect on the motility of spermatozoa in fresh, normal semen, suggesting that the constituents of fresh semen are optimal for motility. Relaxin and PGE2 individually improve the motility of washed spermatozoa. However, relaxin, but not PGE2, improves the motility of sperm in semen incubated at 37 degrees C for 5 hours (aged). In contrast to the individual substances, a combination of relaxin + PGE2 has no effect on the motility of washed spermatozoa or aged spermatozoa, suggesting that these two substances antagonize each other's actions on sperm motility. The presence of both relaxin and PGE2 in seminal plasma with normal motility spermatozoa suggests that other factors in seminal plasma regulate the effects of these substances on sperm motility.

Effect of relaxin on human spermatozoa.

To study its effect on the motility of human spermatozoa, relaxin was added at different concentrations to human semen samples of various qualities as well as to washed spermatozoa. Relaxin in physiologic concentrations (10-100 ng/mL) had no significant effect on sperm motility in normal semen samples. However, the addition of relaxin to semen samples with low sperm motility significantly increased the motility. Addition of relaxin similarly increased the motility of spermatozoa from normal semen samples that were either aged or washed; the treatment resulted in a decrease in motility. When sperm motility was optimal, as in normal samples, addition of relaxin did not increase motility. However, in some situations of decreased motility, addition of relaxin resulted in improvement of spermatozoan motility. Relaxin may have clinical value in the treatment of male infertility.