Attitudes of women of childbearing age towards prenatal diagnosis in Southeastern France

The objective of this study was to explore women's attitudes towards prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 21 and to examine some of the factors possibly responsible for these attitudes before implementing in real practice serological screening of pregnant women at risk for trisomy 21. We carried out a telephone survey on a representative sample of women who had recently had a normal livebirth delivery in the Marseille district in 1990. The participation rate was 80 per cent and the average age of the mothers was 28-9 years. Among the 514 women interviewed, 78 per cent stated that they would ask for an amniocentesis for a 1 per cent risk of trisomy 21 at their next pregnancy. When adjusting for confounding factors, the decision to have or not to have an amniocentesis was found to depend not only on the women's attitude towards induced abortion, but also on their understanding of the risk involved and on the social context (knowing a handicapped child, discussion with the father). It also depended on the women's age and on what they knew about amniocentesis from the medical point of view. The risk of miscarriage can influence a woman's choice but this objection was not found to affect the women's decisions significantly in our survey. The data showed the existence of a high potential demand for fetal karyotyping.     

Prenatal investigation of a 45,X/46,X,r(?) karyotype in amniocytes using fluorescence in situ hybridization with an X-centromeric probe

The karyotype of cultured amniotic fluid cells obtained on the indication of advanced maternal age was shown to be a mosaic 45,X/46,X,r(?). The small size and banding pattern made it difficult to determine whether the ring was derived from and X or a Y chromosome, or even from an autosome. By using an X-centromeric probe and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), we demonstrated the ring to have an X centromere. Thus, a more complete genetic counselling was possible. This confirms the usefulness of FISH in identifying and characterizing this and other chromosome rearrangements in prenatal diagnosis.     

Introduction of early amniocentesis to routine prenatal diagnosis

With growing awareness of the problems associated with prenatal cytogenetic diagnoses after CVS, attempts have been made to provide early amniocentesis as an alternative to CVS. Since 1990, at our clinic the gestational age limit for routine diagnostic amniocentesis has been successively lowered, first to 14 and then to 13 weeks of gestation. Thus, 811 prenatal diagnoses were performed after early amniocentesis at 13 weeks (n = 217) and at 14 weeks of gestation (n = 594). No problems were encountered. Culture failure was never observed in the early samples. Using the criteria ‘number of colonies’ and ‘culture duration until harvest’, early samples taken at 14 weeks did not differ significantly from the controls after standard amniocentesis performed at 15 and 16 weeks, respectively, whereas a minority of samples taken at 13 weeks experienced some delay in culturing. However, in each group at least 85 per cent of samples led to a diagnosis fulfilling our standard criteria of a safe diagnosis (at least 20 metaphases of at least five colonies from at least one primary culture after trypsinization) within 15 days. Some differences between the different groups can be recognized: culture duration of less than 11 days tends to be increasing after standard amniocentesis, whereas long culture duration (more than 20 days) is more often associated with early amniocentesis. However, this trend is only minimal and did not result in an increased risk of missing a diagnosis.     

Optical Imaging of Odor-Evoked Glomerular Activity Patterns in the Antennal Lobes of the Ant Camponotus rufipes

 Ants have a well developed olfactory sense, which they need both for the perception of environmental chemicals, and for a highly sophisticated intraspecific communication system based on pheromones. The question arises therefore as to how different odors are coded in the antennal lobe, the first central neuropil to process olfactory information. We measured odor-evoked activity patterns using in vivo neuropil calcium recording in the antennal lobe of the ant Camponotus rufipes. We found that (a) odors elicit focal activity spots (diameter ca. 20 μm) which most probably represent the olfactory glomeruli; (b) different odors are coded in odor specific patterns of such activated spots, and a particular spot can participate in the pattern for different odors; (c) calcium increased in the activated spots within the 2-s stimulation period and slowly declined thereafter. Received: 10 March 1999 / Accepted in revised form: 5 July 1999     

Metamorphic evolution of eclogite and associated garnet-mica schist in the high-pressure metamorphic Maksyutov complex, Ural, Russia

Metasedimentary garnet-mica schists are interlayered with metabasic garnet–omphacite schists and enclose eclogite boudins in the high-pressure metamorphic Maksyutov complex in the Southern Urals, Russia. These three rock types were investigated in one outcrop and compared chemographically and thermobarometrically. The Fe/Mg distributions between garnet rim–omphacite and garnet rim–phengite pairs indicate different equilibration temperatures for the three samples, with the lowest temperature (500°C, >1.5 GPa) for the eclogite boudin, an intermediate temperature (630°C, >1.7 GPa) for the foliated eclogite and the highest temperature (650°C, >1.7 GPa) for the garnet-mica schist. The garnets in garnet-mica schist enclose abundant chloritoid relics and the Fe/Mg distribution between chloritoid and garnet records an earlier high-temperature stage (650°C, >2.0 GPa) before the garnet rim–phengite temperatures were reached. Together with some minimum- and maximum-pressure estimates three different prograde pressure–temperature paths and a common retrograde metamorphic evolution are interpreted from the chemographic and thermobarometric data. The different early metamorphic evolutions and conditions confirm the variability of protoliths, which are also indicated by different U/Pb zircon and rutile ages.