title: [A newly developed instrument of microbubble test for evaluation of fetal lung maturity].
abstract: A new instrument for Pattle's microbubble test was devised in order to improve the diagnosis of fetal lung maturity. This instrument consists of 4 needles fixed at 8mm intervals and an air pump. Microbubbles were produced in 175 microliter of amniotic fluid placed on a slide glass by injecting 10 ml of air at 400 ml/h with an air pump through 22 gage needles. After 4 minutes, the number of stable microbubbles less than 15 um in diameter were counted in 5 microscope fields. When over 6 microbubbles were observed, fetal lung maturity was diagnosed as positive. 72 samples of amniotic fluids were tested by our method as well as the other 5 methods. The percentage of accurate diagnostic results was 97.2% with our method, 93.1% with the L/S ratio, 83.3% with the DSPC method, 86.1% with the PG method, 93.1% with the shake method, and 94.4% with the Pattle's original method. It is concluded that ours is a reliable, rapid and simple method for evaluating fetal lung maturity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Gunma University School of Medicine.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Asanome
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Seki
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tsuchiya
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005325:Fetal Organ Maturity; D006801:Humans; D008168:Lung / Q000196:embryology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011247:Pregnancy; D011296:Prenatal Diagnosis / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods