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Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves testing for specific genetic conditions prior to the implantation of an embryo in the uterine wall. This form of genetic screening has been made possible by the growth of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) technology, which allows for the early stages of development to occur in a laboratory dish rather than in vivo. The purpose of PGD is to identify what are considered to be abnormal embryos in order to select the most desirable embryos for implantation.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Chorionic Villus Sampling
Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) is a test used for prenatal diagnosis. Safe to perform at an earlier stage in pregnancy than amniocentesis, CVS is another invasive prenatal diagnostic test that can be performed as early as ten weeks after the woman's last menstrual cycle. While this test does carry some risks, it is generally very effective at predicting heritable diseases during or soon after the embryonic stage of development.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Amniocentesis
Amniocentesis is a test used for prenatal diagnosis of inherited diseases, Rh incompatibility, neural tube defects, and lung maturity. Normally performed during the second trimester of a pregnancy, this invasive procedure allows the detection of health problems in the fetus as early as fifteen weeks gestation. Although amniocentesis does carry some significant risks, the medical community commonly accepts it as a safe and useful procedure.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Endoscopic Fetoscopy
Endoscopic fetoscopy is a minimally invasive surgical procedure performed during pregnancy that allows physicians to view the fetus in-utero. Physicians use endoscopic fetoscopy to evaluate, diagnose, and treat fetal abnormalities. Physicians use an endoscope, or a thin, flexible surgical device with a light attached to its end, to perform endoscopic fetoscopy procedures. In 1954, Björn Westin performed the first endoscopic fetoscopy in Sweden.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
The Guthrie Test for Early Diagnosis of Phenylketonuria
The Guthrie test, also called the PKU test, is a diagnostic tool to test infants for phenylketonuria a few days after birth. To administer the Guthrie test, doctors use Guthrie cards to collect capillary blood from an infant’s heel, and the cards are saved for later testing. Robert Guthrie invented the test in 1962 in Buffalo, New York. Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a congenital birth abnormality in which toxic levels of the amino acid phenylalanine build up in the blood, a process that affects the brains in untreated infants.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Oral Glucose Tolerance Test for Gestational Diabetes
In the twentieth century, researchers developed the oral glucose tolerance test, or OGTT, as a method to diagnose different types of diabetes, a medical condition that causes blood sugar levels to become abnormally high. During the test, a healthcare provider measures a person’s blood sugar levels before and after the person consumes a predetermined amount of glucose solution. While not exclusively used for pregnant women, an OGTT may test for gestational diabetes which, according to the International Diabetes Federation, affected one in six pregnancies worldwide in 2019.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction, Experiments
Medical Vibrators for Treatment of Female Hysteria
During the late 1800s through the early 1900s, physicians administered pelvic massages involving clitoral stimulation by early electronic vibrators as treatments for what was called female hysteria. Until the early 1900s, physicians used female hysteria as a diagnosis for women who reported a wide range of complaints and symptoms unexplainable by any other diagnosis at the time. According to historian Rachel Maines, physicians provided pelvic massages for thousands of years to female patients without it being considered erotic or sexually stimulating.
Format: Articles
Subject: Reproduction, Technologies, Ethics
Laparoscopy
Laparoscopy, a subfield of endoscopy, is a minimally invasive surgical procedure used to examine and operate on the internal organs of the abdomen through a small incision in the abdominal wall. The term "laparoscopy" is derived from two Greek words: laparo, meaning the soft space between hips and ribs, and skopie, meaning to examine. Today laparoscopy has broad clinical applications including for diagnosis, fertility procedures, visual representation, and surgery.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Noninvasive Fetal Aneuploidy Detection for Trisomy 21, 13, and 18
Noninvasive fetal aneuploidy detection technology allows for the detection of fetal genetic conditions, specifically having three chromosomes, a condition called aneuploidy, by analyzing a simple blood sample from the pregnant woman. Dennis Lo and Rossa Chiu researched methods of detection of aneuploidies in the early twenty-first century. Their research has been specifically applied to three trisomies, trisomy twenty-one known as Down syndrome, trisomy eighteen known as Edwards Syndrome, and trisomy thirteen known as Patau Syndrome.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
James Marion Sims's Treatment of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula
James Marion Sims developed a treatment for vesico-vaginal fistulas in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1840s. Vesico-vaginal fistulas were a relatively common condition in which a woman's urine leaked into her vaginal cavity from her bladder, and many regarded the fistulas as untreatable during the early 1800s. After years of efforts to repair the fistulas with myriad tools, techniques, and procedures, Sims developed the speculum and a vaginal examination position later named for him.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Radioimmunoassay
Radioimmunoassay (RIA) is a technique in which researchers use radioactive isotopes as traceable tags to quantify specific biochemical substances from blood samples. Rosalyn Yalow and Solomon Berson developed the method in the 1950s while working at the Bronx Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital in New York City, New York. RIA requires small samples of blood, yet it is extremely sensitive to minute quantities of biological molecules within the sample. The use of RIA improved the accuracy of many kinds of medical diagnoses, and it influenced hormone and immune research around the world.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Gunther von Hagens' Plastination Technique
Plastination is a technique for preserving tissues, organs, and whole bodies for medical purposes and public display. Gunther von Hagens invented a form of the method in 1977 at Heidelberg University in Heidelberg, Germany after observing medical students struggle working with cadavers that quickly decomposed. Von Hagens' body models, referred to as plastinates, have since become widely used educational tools not only for those studying anatomy and medicine, but also for the general public.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
2D Obstetric Ultrasound
The development of the obstetric ultrasound has allowed physicians and embryologists to obtain a clear picture of the developing human embryo and fetus during pregnancy. Obstetric ultrasonography, often referred to as ultrasound, is a technology that uses sound waves to produce images of structures inside the human body. A handheld probe emits sound waves, which are reflected back by the different structures within the body.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Diethylstilbestrol (DES) in the US
Diethylstilbestrol (DES) is an artificially created hormone first synthesized in the late 1930s. Doctors widely prescribed DES first to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages, and later as an emergency contraceptive pill and to treat breast cancer. However, in 1971, physicians showed a link between DES and vaginal cancer during puberty in the children of women who had taken DES while pregnant. Consequently, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned its use during pregnancy.
Format: Articles
Subject: Reproduction, Technologies
Endoscopy
Endoscopy is a medical procedure that enables the viewing and biopsy of, and surgery on, internal tissues and organs. Endoscopic examinations are characterized by the introduction of a tube containing a series of lenses into the body through either an incision in the skin or a natural opening or cavity. During the mid-twentieth century, photographer Lennart Nilsson used endoscopes to capture the now-familiar images of embryos and fetuses.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Mammography
Mammography or mastography is an imaging technology used in the twentieth century for the detection of breast cancer and other breast abnormalities. Breast cancer is an abnormal growth in breast tissue that can spread to other parts of the body and cause death. Breast cancer affects about twelve percent of women worldwide. In the twenty-first century, mammography is one of the most accurate tools for screening and diagnosing breast cancer.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
"Screening for Congenital Hypothyroidism" (1991), by Delbert A. Fisher
In his 1991 article Screening for Congenital Hypothyroidism, Delbert A. Fisher in the US reported on the implementation and impact of mass neonatal screening programs for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) from the early 1970s through 1991. CH is a condition that causes stunted mental and physical development in newborns unless treatment begins within the first three months of the newborn's life. In the early 1970s, regions in Canada and the US had implemented screening programs to diagnose and treat CH as quickly as possible after the infant's birth.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications, Technologies
“Cardiovascular Risk Associated With the Use of an Etonogestrel-Containing Vaginal Ring” (2013), by Jürgen Dinger, Sabine Möhner, and Klaas Heinemann
In October 2013, Jürgen Dinger, Sabine Möhner, and Klaas Heinemann published the article “Cardiovascular Risk Associated With the Use of an Etonogestrel-Containing Vaginal Ring,” hereafter “Cardiovascular Risk,” in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. The authors enrolled patients in the study who were new users of either a vaginal contraceptive ring known as NuvaRing or a combined oral contraceptive pill. A combined oral contraceptive pill contains a formulation of the hormones progesterone and estrogen.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Exchange Transfusion for Jaundiced Newborns in the United States
Exchange transfusion is the replacement of blood from newborn infants with elevated bilirubin level in their blood stream with donor blood containing normal bilirubin levels. Newborn infants that experience jaundice, the yellowing of the skin and eyes, have a buildup of bilirubin, a chemical that occurs during red blood cell breakdown, or hemolysis. Exchange transfusion is a therapy developed throughout the 1940s by Louis Diamond and a group of surgeons at the Children’s Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Martius Flap Procedure to Repair Obstetric Fistulas
The Martius flap procedure is a surgical procedure used to treat obstetric fistulas in women. Heinrich Martius developed the procedure in twentieth century Germany to treat women with urinary incontinence caused by stress, and later doctors used it to repair obstetric fistulas. Fistulas occur in pregnant women when a hole is torn between the vagina and the urinary tract (called vesicovaginal) or the vagina and the rectum (called rectovaginal). The hole, or fistula, occurs in the tissue separating two organs and therefore obstetric fistulas result in either urinary or fecal incontinence.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Disorders
Acid Dissolution of Fossil Dinosaur Eggs
Acid dissolution is a technique of removing a fossil from the surrounding rock matrix in which it is encased by dissolving that matrix with acid. Fossilized bone, though strong enough to be preserved for thousands or millions of years, is often more delicate than rock. Once a fossil is discovered, scientists must remove the fossil from its surroundings without damaging the fossil itself.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
The Aschheim-Zondek Test for Pregnancy
Throughout history many different methods have been devised for the early detection of pregnancy. From the time of the Ancient Egyptians, inspection of the urine has been a popular place to start. However, it was not until the discovery of hormones in the early twentieth century that the development of truly reliable pregnancy tests occurred. Prior to 1978, when the first home pregnancy tests became available in the United States, pregnancy testing was done in hospital laboratories using various methods, one of them being the Aschheim-Zondek, or A-Z test.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
NovaSure Endometrial Ablation
NovaSure is a device for endometrial ablation, which is a procedure that removes the endometrium, that the US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, approved for use on 28 September 2001. Endometrium is the tissue that lines the uterus. NovaSure destroys the endometrium by sending electric beams at the endometrium. Hologic, a medical technology company concerned with women’s health, developed NovaSure to treat menorrhagia, or heavy bleeding during menstruation. Menorrhagia is a common symptom of endometriosis. Endometriosis is the growth of the endometrium outside of the uterus.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging to Visualize Fetal Abnormalities
Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a technique to create a three-dimensional image of a fetus. Doctors often use MRIs to image a fetuses after an ultrasound has detected an, or has been inconclusive about an, abnormality. In 1983 researchers in Scotland first used MRI to visualize a fetus. MRIs showed a greater level of fetal detail than ultrasound images, and researchers recognized the relevance of this technique as a means to gather information about fetal development and growth.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Technologies, Reproduction