Abstract

*Rasha Amer Khalaf, Hayder J. Mubarak and Hussein A.

ABSTRACT

Background: The growth and development of human fetus is depending on the placenta, thus any alterations in the normal development, function and morphology of the placenta and umbilical cord could result in adverse outcome on the pregnancy and deleterious effects to both mother and child. Materials and methods: 20 normal term placentas with eccentric umbilical cord insertion (9 placentas were included in IHC) were collected from none smoker healthy pregnant women (have no: hypertension, diabetes, preeclampsia and any other chronic diseases or gynecological problem), who underwent normal vaginal delivery. The samples (placentas) were directly collected after being expelled from the uterus and were examined to ensure that they have an eccentric umbilical cord insertion. In this study, M30 Cytodeath was used for assessing the immunhistochemical reactivity of M30 in trophoblastic villous of placental tissues to investigated if the programmed cell death (apoptosis) is related to the eccentric umbilical cord insertion. The analysis of the results of immunohistochemical study was achieved by applying Aperio positive pixel count algorithms program. Results: In this study, the immunohistochemical reactivity for the M30 Cytodeath was seen mainly in the placental trophoblastic villi of term human placenta and the four zones of placental villi that have been studied showed the same pattern of M30 immunhistochemical reactivity, while the reactivity of the M30 Cytodeath was poor in the core villi and the syncytial knots, and the differences in the data of M30 immunohistochemical expression, showed that the programmed cell death (apoptosis) detected in placental trophoblastic villi was not related to the eccentric umbilical cord insertion, because the mean positivity in the four zones of term human placenta, showed statistically non-significant differences (p value > 0.05).