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Clinical and Experimental Obstetrics & Gynecology (CEOG) is published by IMR Press from Volume 47 Issue 1 (2020). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with S.O.G.
Original Research
Evaluation of fetal pulmonary maturity by gas-chromatographic analysis of amniotic fluid palmitic acid/stearic acid (P/S) ratio
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1
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Genova
2
Institute of Human Physiology, University of Genova
3
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Civil Hospital of Sestri Ponente
Clin. Exp. Obstet. Gynecol. 1980, 7(1), 44–46;
Published: 10 March 1980
Abstract
Gas-chromatographic analysis of the fatty acids (P/S ratio) in 212 samples of amniotic fluid, 35 samples of vernix caseosa and 35 samples of the pellets obtained after centrifugation of the amniotic fluid were carried out to evaluate the effects of contaminants that might be present in amniotic fluid on the P/S ratio. The P/S ratio is used as an index of the degree of maturity of the fetal or neonatal lungs. Analysis of variance applied to the means of the P/S values for each of above materials showed them to be significantly different and attests to the importance of centrifugation for obtaining valid results. We propose a standard procedure of centrifugation for 60 minutes at 3500× g followed by extraction and gas-chromatography as a rapid, valid way to measure the P/S ratio.