OBGYN.net Staff

Articles by OBGYN.net Staff

Telemedicine is the electronic transmission of health information for the delivery of clinical care from a distance. Today it is increasingly used to provide efficiencies in the delivery of women’s health care.

Patients suffering from diseased and injured organs may be treated with transplanted organs. However, there is a severe shortage of donor organs which is worsening yearly due to the aging population. Scientists in the field of tissue engineering apply the principles of cell transplantation, materials science, and bioengineering to construct biological substitutes that will restore and maintain normal function in diseased and injured tissues.

Cervical cancer is the second most common gynecological cancer amongst women world-wide. Despite optimized protocols, standard treatments still face several disadvantages. Therefore, research aims at the development of immune-based strategies using tumor antigen-loaded dendritic cells for the induction of cellular anti-tumor immunity.

Evidence supporting a role for estrogen in male reproductive tract development and function has been collected from rodents and humans. These studies fall into three categories: i) localization of aromatase and the target protein for estrogen (ER-alpha and ER-beta) in tissues of the reproductive tract; ii) analysis of testicular phenotypes in transgenic mice deficient in aromatase, ER-alpha and/or ER-beta gene; and, iii) investigation of the effects of environmental chemicals on male reproduction.

Editorial

Our guest editor for this issue of Gynaecology Forum is Hans van der Slikke, who was also guest editor for the last issue of Gynaecology Forum concerned with the Internet in 2000. I typed that editorial on my PC and emailed the draft to the publishers.

Much has changed in the World Wide Web in the 3 years since the first Internet issue of Gynaecology Forum (www.obgyn.net/medforum.asp) was published in September 2000. At that time it was still necessary to cover the history of the Internet and explain the requirements needed to access it.

The Internet has, without question, assumed a place in the life of most physicians and many patients. Though users vary in skill of use and sophistication of inquiry, some issues are common to all. The quandary about which websites may safely be trusted is one such issue. Health website quality guidelines, easily accessed on the Internet, aid users in their decisions.

The ubiquitous use of the World Wide Web to facilitate learning has been a benefactor of change, revolutionising the way in which education can be delivered and received. This technological advancement has woven together communities of learners and permitted access to huge repositories of information while eliminating distance as an obstacle to learning (Table I).

Ultra-fast freezing of ovarian tissue from women who have lost their fertility as a result of cancer treatment can lead to it being used in transplants with the same success rate as fresh tissue, a researcher told the 25th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

Our Knowledge of Reproductive medicine has been expanded rapidly since the birth of Louise Brown, the first baby to be conceived by In vitro Fertilization in 1978. Hardly a year goes by without the development of a new or a modification of an existing method of assisted reproduction.

Extend Fertility™ and Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York (RMA of NY) today announced initial results in the ongoing Extend Fertility-sponsored multi-site study designed to further the science and efficacy of oocyte cryopreservation or “egg freezing.”

Premature ovarian failure (POF) is a primary ovarian defect characterized by absent menarche (primary amenorrhea) or premature depletion of ovarian follicles before the age of 40 years (secondary amenorrhea).

Adenomyosis is a benign disease of the uterus in which components normally limited to the endometrium (the thin innermost uterine layer) are found within the myometrium (the middle muscular layer of the uterus). The exact prevalence of adenomyosis is not known because the diagnosis can be made only by microscopic examination of uterine specimens obtained during surgery or, less often, during biopsy.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association asserts that 43% of American women are experiencing some sort of sexual dysfunction during a 12 months period. As a result, female sexuality has become the new mass media debate. With all that exposure many women are wondering if something is wrong with them? What’s going on?