P J Merkelbach | PubMed Health

PubMed1982

Synthetic absorbable and nonabsorbable microsutures: a histological comparison.

The increasing usage of microsurgery in gynaecology and the recent release of a synthetic absorbable microsuture prompted a comparative study between this material and a nonabsorbable microsuture. Ethilon and Coated Vicryl sutures (Ethicon Inc.) were inserted into rabbit uteri and the histological response compared at 35 and 70 days using both light and polarizing microscopy. The results indicated that although the predominating cell types differed, the overall histological sequelae were markedly less with the synthetic absorbable suture than with the nonabsorbable suture materials.

Animals↗

PubMed1977

Effect on pregnancy and plasma progesterone of exogenous steroid maintenance in ovariectomised pregnant rabbits.

Pregnancy was maintained in ovariectomised does with 1 to 4 mg/day of exogenous progesterone with or without 0.2 microgram/day of estradiol. Progesterone doses were designed to give similar plasma progesterone levels in treated groups to those found in normal pregnancy, and were measured and compared with normals since this comparison does not appear to have been published previously. In normal pregnancy mean progesterone levels reached 10 ng/ml on day 7 and then plateaued at 14 ng/ml between day 10 and 20 before falling to very low levels at parturition. In treated groups progesterone levels reached 10 ng/ml on day 6 and remained between 10 and 13 ng/ml until day 20 before declining. The difference between treated and control plasma progesterone plateau levels was tested using the t-test and was found not be significant. The differences in progesterone levels between treated groups with or without estradiol, whether pregnant or not, were also not significant. Mean litter sizes (alive or dead) were not significantly different. However, fetal viability in the group maintained on progesterone alone was significantly lower than in the normal controls.

Animals↗