Solid organ abdominal ischemia, part I: clinical features, etiology, imaging findings, and management

Ovarian tissue transportation: a systematic review

In recent years, some countries and fertility preservation networks have started adopting 24 h transportation for ovarian tissue, a practice that has the potential to spread very quickly due to the high costs and bureaucracy involved in the establishment of ovarian tissue cryobanks. While pregnancies and live births have been reported after such long periods of transportation, this, however, remains an empirical procedure. This review aims to prompt reflection on ovarian tissue transport, highlighting the lack of knowledge in humans by providing a counterpoint looking into more than 40 studies published in different animal models. By discussing these studies in animals, the findings of various models can be deciphered, and light shed on the patterns identified. Like the development of different assisted reproductive technology procedures, this is an important step in creating guidelines for future studies on human ovarian tissue transportation.

Enhancing in vivo renal ischemia assessment by high-dynamic-range fluorescence molecular imaging

Fluorescence imaging has been used to evaluate the physiological features of renal ischemia in animal model. However, the fluorophore distribution details of the ischemia model could not be fully represented due to the limited dynamic range of the charged-couple device. A high-dynamic-range (HDR) strategy was adopted in renal ischemia fluorescence imaging, both ex vivo and in vivo. The HDR strategy successfully combined ischemia relevant biological features that could only be captured with different exposure times, and then presented these features in the HDR results. The HDR results effectively highlighted the renal ischemic areas with relatively better perfusion and diminished the saturation that resulted from long exposure time. The relative fluorescence intensities of the ischemic kidneys and the image entropy values were significantly higher in the HDR images than in the original images, therefore enhancing the visualization of the renal ischemia model. The results suggest that HDR could serve as a postprocessing strategy to enhance the assessment of in vivo renal ischemia, and HDR fluorescence molecular imaging could be a valuable imaging tool for future studies of clinical ischemia detection and evaluation.

Developmental Programming of Ovarian Functions and Dysfunctions

The pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the origin of several ovarian pathologies remain unclear. In addition to the genetic basis, developmental insults are gaining attention as a basis for the origin of these pathologies. Such early insults include maternal over or under nutrition, stress, and exposure to environmental chemicals. This chapter reviews the development and physiological function of the ovary, the known ovarian pathologies, the developmental check points of ovarian differentiation impacted by developmental insults, the role played by steroidal and metabolic factors as mediaries, the epigenetic mechanisms via which these mediaries induce their effects, and the knowledge gaps for targeting future studies to ultimately aid in the development of improved treatments.