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Objective This study aimed to determine if laboratory inflammatory markers can predict critical disease in symptomatic COVID-19 pregnant women. Study Design Multicenter, retrospective cohort study of all pregnant women presenting to New York City Health + Hospitals emergency departments from March 1 to May 30, 2020. We assessed all symptomatic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) positive pregnant women with room air oxygen saturation Results A total of 498 of 5,002 pregnant women were SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR positive of which 77 presented with hypoxemia. The absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) were highly sensitive for progression to severe illness. ROC curve analysis identified predictive cutoffs: ALC 8.1 (100% sensitivity, 70% specificity, AUC = 0.86 (95% CI: [0.76–0.96]). Conclusion ALC and NLR on presentation are sensitive markers of progression to critical COVID-19 disease in symptomatic pregnant women. This finding provides a practical, rapid method for assessment and can assist clinicians with decision-making regarding triage, level of care, and patient management. Key Points

We performed a meta-analysis of all published cases of fetal supraventricular tachyarrhythmia (SVT) treated with maternally administered oral digoxin. The purpose of the study was to determine the expected therapeutic response time and thereby facilitate clinical management of fetal SVT. A statistically significant association was found between the duration of therapy and the probability of therapeutic success. Sixty percent of fetuses responded within 10 days of initiating oral digoxin and 80% within 17 days. We have constructed a graph of the expected fetal response rate over time. Our findings also suggest that cases that have been reported as treatment failures were in fact treated for a significantly shorter duration than fetuses in whom SVT was controlled. Ninety-two percent of failures were treated for 7 days or less. No other significant differences could be detected between the groups. Our findings elucidate the expected response rate of fetal SVT to oral digoxin therapy and suggest that many cas...

Simple sequence repeat microsatellite polymorphisms are extremely useful markers for resolutional enhancement of human genetic linkage maps due to the existence of multiple alleles and a high degree of heterozygosity. The authors have identified and characterized two polymorphic CA-dinucleotide repeats and have determined their positional assignment on the X chromosome by genetic and physical mapping. 14 refs., 1 tab.

Objective: To investigate the possibility that neuroepithelial tumors in Turcot9s syndrome are caused by pleiotropic mutations in the gene for adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), a tumor-suppressor gene implicated in colonic cancer. Methods: We studied the inheritance patterns of genetic markers for the chromosome 5q21 region in 12 members of a Turcot9s syndrome kindred with five affected members. We performed linkage analysis to detect linkage between the disease phenotype and DNA markers. Results: Marker D5S346, located 30 to 70 kilobases from the APC locus, showed evidence highly suggestive of linkage to the disease phenotype (lod score = 1.92). Conclusions: The data provide evidence that the tumor-suppressor gene implicated in APC and sporadic colon cancers may also cause malignant neuroepithelial tumors in Turcot9s syndrome.

Two groups of 58 gestational diabetic women matched for age, prepregnancy weight, height, and parity were studied. The home glucose monitoring study group performed fasting and 1-hour postprandial capillary blood glucose testing after every meal. The control group was followed by conventional treatment. The incidence of macrosomia (birth weight of greater than or equal to 4000 gm) and large (greater than or equal to 90%) for gestational age infants was significantly reduced in the home glucose monitoring group. The mean birth weight of the study group was 3231 +/- 561 gm, while that of the control group was 3597 +/- 721 gm (p less than 0.002). Significantly more patients in the home glucose monitoring group were receiving insulin therapy (50% versus 21%). We believe that intensive home glucose monitoring will allow for the early identification of those gestational diabetic patients needing insulin and thus reduce the incidence of macrosomia and large for gestational age infants.