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The aim of this study was to determine the general light and electron microscopic findings which lend support to the histopathologic diagnosis of the main cutaneous manifestations of Lyme borreliosis. The diagnostic criteria are delineated and illustrated. In culminating lesions of erythema migrans and acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans, a peculiar connective tissue reaction includes an increase in the number of fibroblasts, proliferation of collagen fibres and interstitial mucinous oedema. The cellular infiltrates are patchy and perivascular in erythema migrans and either patchy and/or band-like and interstitial in acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans. They consist of lymphohistiocytic cells with a variable admixture of plasma cells. The damage to elastic (and even collagen) fibres occurs in early acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans and is reflected by the phenomenon of elastophagocytosis with a fragmentation of elastic and oxytalan fibres. Reduction of the number or lack of pilosebaceous units is a constant finding. In advanced lesions of acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans a thinning of the dermal breadth is noticed, resulting from a decrease of collagen and elastic fibres. Fibrous nodules and morphea-like conditions are characterized by excessive formation of collagen. Borrelial lymphocytoma exhibits two different patterns of infiltration, accompanied by dermal fibrosis and increased numbers of fibroblasts. Recent tick bites show a predominantly neutrophilic infiltrate, with an admixture of eosinophilic granulocytes. By applying the results of this synoptic study, histopathologic diagnosis including the histological and ultrastructural findings of cutaneous borrelia infections should be possible without the absolute necessity of clinical correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In women with endometriosis, the peristaltic activity of the uterus is significantly enhanced and may even become dysperistaltic at midcycle. Since uterine peristalsis is confined to the endometrium and the subendometrial myometrium with its predominantly circular arrangement of muscular fibres it was assumed that this dysfunction might be associated with structural abnormalities that could be visualized by high resolution ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Therefore, the uteri of women with and without endometriosis were subjected to endovaginal sonography (EVS) and to MRI. In EVS, women with laparoscopically proven endometriosis and infertility exhibited an infiltrative expansion of the archimetra in that the halo surrounding the uterine endometrium and representing the subendometrial myometrium was significantly enlarged compared with controls. The expansion was more pronounced in older than in younger women. There was, however, no relationship between the width of the expansion and the severity of the endometriotic disease. Similar data were obtained by MRI in that the `junctional zone' in women with endometriosis and infertility was expanded in comparison with controls. The results of this study provide further support to the notion that endometriosis is primarily a uterine disease. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Immunocytochemistry of oestrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) expression of the whole uterine muscular wall and the endometrium was performed in order to obtain morphological and functional insights into the regulation of cyclic uterine peristalsis, which is confined to the endometrium and the subendometrial myometrium and serves functions such as rapid and sustained sperm transport. The study revealed that the subendometrial myometrium or stratum subvasculare with a predominantly circular arrangement of muscular fibres exhibits a cyclic pattern of ER and PR expression that parallels that of the endometrium, whereas the outer portion of the uterine wall composed of the stratum vasculare and supravasculare, which represents the bulk of the uterine musculature, does not exhibit a cyclic pattern of ER and PR expression. According to ontogenetic and phylogenetic data from the literature, the outer myometrium is of non-paramesonephric origin with functions confined to parturition, while the inner myometrial layer together with the glandular epithelium and the stroma of the endometrium is of paramesonephric origin with various functions during the cycle in addition to those during pregnancy and parturition. The inner quarter of the stratum vasculare adjacent to the stratum subvasculare constitutes a transitional zone in that the cyclicity of receptor staining becomes, in radial direction, gradually less expressed. Morphologically this zone corresponds to the inner part of the stratum vasculare where its muscular fibres blend with those of the stratum subvasculare. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents interesting findings concerning the influence of appearance on eating habits. Specifically, the analysis provides data showing that people participate in health-protective activities only partially for reasons of health. The article suggests that unemployed women must depend more on their appearance for bargaining power than do employed women, who have their jobs as an alternative source of influence. The study concludes that concern with health was not significant in regard to eating habits.

Endometriosis is considered primarily a disease of the endometrial-subendometrial unit or archimetra. The clinical picture of endometriosis characterises this disease as a hyperactivation of genuine archimetrial functions such as proliferation, inflammatory defence and peristalsis. While the aetiology of the disease remains to be elucidated, a key event appears to consist in the local production of extraovarian oestrogen by a pathological expression of the P450 aromatase. The starting event may consist in a hyperactivity of the endometrial inflammatory defence, a hyperactivity of the endometrial oxytocin/oxytocin receptor system or in the pathological expression of the P450 aromatase system itself. Regardless of which of these levels the starting event is localized in, they influence each other on both the level of the archimetra and the endometriotic lesions. Locally elevated oestrogen levels inevitably up-regulate the endometrial oxytocin mRNA and increased levels of oxytocin result in uterine hyper-peristalsis, increased transtubal seeding of endometrial tissue fragments and finally subfertility and infertility by impairment of the uterine mechanism of rapid and sustained sperm transport. Locally increased levels of oestrogen lead, on both the level of the endometrial-subendometrial unit and the endometriotic lesion, to processes of hyperproliferation. These processes result, on the level of the uterus, in an infiltrative growth of elements of the archimetra into the neometra and, on the level of the endometriotic lesion, in infiltrative endometriosis. There is circumstantial evidence that trauma might be an important initial event that induces the specific biochemical and cellular responses of the archimetra. This model is able to explain both the pleiomorphic appearance of endometriosis and the, up until now, enigmatic infertility associated with mild and moderate endometriosis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A method of frozen storage of Ham's F10 medium was investigated that provides ‘ready-to-use’ culture medium for human in-vitro fertilization, without the necessity of readjusting and testing the medium after thawing. Ham's F10 medium, without bicarbonate, was adjusted to 245 mOsm/kg and stored in aliquots of 33 ml at − 20°C. Aliquots of 1 ml of a 7.5% (w/v) sodium bicarbonate solution were stored separately at the same temperature. The two components were mixed together after thawing. In the first test series, mouse embryos were cultured in media stored frozen for varying intervals between 2 weeks and 6 months and no difference in the rates of blastocyst formation was detected. Frozen-stored Ham's F10 medium was then used for human IVF in 256 cycles performed within a 16-month period in two different FVF centres. The pregnancy rates were evaluated and correlated with the duration of the frozen storage (between 1 week and 3 months) and compared to the outcome of 24 cases in which non-frozen medium was used. There was no significant difference in the pregnancy rates in the different groups (19% with non-frozen medium and between 21 and 33% with frozen-stored medium). Thus it was shown that there is no loss of quality of the frozen-stored media within the tested period of 3 months. The prolonged storage interval offers the possibility of extended quality tests and cross-tests between different FVF laboratories. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]