Talk:Molar pregnancy

Isn't
Isn't this normally spelt Hydatidiform?


 * You're right: 130,000 against 12,000 google results. I'll change it. JFW | T@lk  07:30, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Merge
Shouldn't this be merged with molar pregnancy? TacoDeposit 05:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I support the merge. --Arcadian 04:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Keep the article
Wipfeln 04:15, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Insufficient context
I came to this page as a fairly well-educated layman after reading about a molar pregnancy. After reading through it twice I still have only a vague sense of what this is. What is a mole, in this context? Is this a pregnancy? Apparently not, as it "mimics pregnancy." But the article then goes on to refer to trimesters and uterine growth.

I'm not sure what wikipedia policy is for articles such as this as far as their accesibility for the general population, but I left this page with more questions than answers.Armandtanzarian 21:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I am having some difficulty with understanding some of the explanations here. I need to know more about this... what is it? a condition? an infection? What part has the male partner played in all this? Is the male sperm an active ingredient in the split second of the start of the formation of this molar pregnancy? The male side of this has not been explained. Perhaps this means the male sperm has no effect whatsoever on the developement. Or perhaps the male sperm can do this again and again. What is the real long term prognosis for women? If you take all the molar pregnancies in one year and follow this up over twenty years, what is the survival rate? what happens to the women, do they become more susceptible to other illnesses or infections. I think the article is very good for the medical readers. For the others, well we are desperate to find out some of the implications in all of this.(Keith22840 08:31, 14 March 2007 (UTC))

The information here is inadequate and misleading. In my experience, moles are diagnosed well before the second trimester, usually by ultrasound or after a miscarriage. Although bleeding is a potential sign, it is not a common one and therefore not the signature means of diagnosing a mole. In most cases a miscarriage accompanied by high HCG levels or an ultrasound image showing the "cluster of grapes" indicative of a complete mole are the key signs of a potential molar pregnancy. Pathological examination after removal is the only definitive method of diagnosing a molar pregnancy. Treatment and monitoring periods vary depending on where the woman is being treated as well as whether there is regrowth of molar tissue or development of choriocarcinoma, but the standard is a 1-year period of monthly monitoring for women with complete moles and a 6-month waiting period for women with partial moles. Although scientifically speaking, a pregnancy that is or becomes molar is nonviable (and in the case of a complete mole a fetus never existed), the emotional impact of the loss for the woman will be as significant as any other form of miscarriage, and medical providers should be prepared to treat the mother and family members as people experiencing a loss in addition to facing the potential for cancer to develop. This particular Wikipedia entry lacks both sufficient information and a manner of expression that the average reader can comprehend, and it should be rewritten. --24.110.242.191 23:11, 23 July 2007 (UTC) Jennifer Wood, founder, MyMolarPregnancy.com

Yes, the article needs a rewrite. For starters, I have removed the external links to support groups:
 * MyMolarPregnancy.com Support group, information, links and personal stories for women with molar pregnancies.
 * Molar Pregnancy Early pregnancy loss

--Una Smith (talk) 15:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I rewrote the introduction and removed some repetitions and simplified some of the language. Hope it's more understandable now. AxelBoldt (talk) 23:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Other fetuses?
Under "Natural history," the article says that a partial mole may occur with a fetus, but the fetus is always malformed and never viable. But the intro paragraph says that a mole may occur with a normal fetus, and the "Treatment" section says that treatment is more difficult when normal fetuses are present. Can normal, viable fetuses occur along with a mole of this type? Aardnavark (talk) 13:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Molar pregnancies come in two types, complete moles and partial moles. Complete moles occur when two sperm fertilize an empty egg, and a partial mole occurs when two sperm fertilize a normal egg. In a complete mole there is no fetus. In a partial mole there is a fetus, but it has an abnormal number of chromosomes and is incompatible with life. The treatment for both complete moles and partial moles is evacuation as they can never lead to a viable pregnancy but have the potential to have serious sequelae for the mother (hemorrhage, cancer, etc.). To complicate matters, just like in normal pregnancies, sometimes there can be twins. In the case of a twin pregnancy, there can be one molar pregnancy and one normal pregnancy. The molar part of the pregnancy cannot produce a viable fetus, but the normal pregnancy that happens to coexist in the uterus with the molar pregnancy can potentially be viable. The complicated part comes in treating these women who have both a molar (premalignant) pregnancy and a viable fetus. When this occurs, there is only about a 25% chance of going on to deliver a life baby, but there are significant risks to the mother. Hope this helps. D.c.camero (talk) 22:52, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Treatment and Prognosis - clarification, citations?
These sections require clarification supported by citations. The language in Prognosis is particularly vague; I rewrote as "childbearing ability" what had been phrased "ability to have children." This is not only nonencyclopedic language, it doesn't indicate whether these are identical figures and reasons as with all women treated for metastatic cancers of the reproductive organs. -- Deborahjay (talk) 15:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

1 Tony Coleby (talk) 15:18, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

New Review Article
From New England Journal of Medicine. Some good info that could be incorporated:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/360/16/1639 --Wawot1 (talk) 02:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Complete vs Partial Moles
As it stands now, the distinction between partial moles and complete moles is not clear in the article. It needs help! --Wawot1 (talk) 03:15, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Made the intro a bit more punchy - hope it helps. I'll be checking the review articles and seeing what I can add.--Cpt ricard (talk) 03:43, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Amount of maternal tissue
I removed a sentence from the intro paragraph which stated that "Molar pregnancies are categorized into partial and complete moles, mainly depending on the amount of maternal tissue present." First of all, the source provided, a BBC article, did not support this assertion. Although partial and complete moles may have different characteristic morphologies, the defining difference between the two is their genetic makeup, not how much tissue is present. Second of all, a BBC news article is not an appropriate source for a topic on a medicine article (see Reliable sources:  "For information about academic topics, such as physics or ancient history, scholarly sources are preferred over news stories. Newspapers tend to misrepresent results, leaving out crucial details and reporting discoveries out of context. For example, news reports often fail to adequately report methodology, errors, risks, and costs associated with a new scientific result or medical treatment.")

Wawot1 (talk) 22:59, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi there - let's work to make this page better. Aside from nitpicking the word "tissue" (and I see what you mean now - it's correct but not specific enough) I agree with what you're saying.  But wouldn't it have been better to simply change the word in question rather than remove the entire thing?  We're trying to establish an article where anyone, without any kind of training, can understand what we're talking about, and I believe stating the actual differences helps to do that in an encyclopedic manner.  The difference essentially _is_ whether or not there is any maternal genetic component.  I'll try to see if I can come up with something better written - or if you can too, that'd be great.  As for the link, it was something which I wanted to explain more clearly in a footnote but if we have something better written there might not be a need for it.  As for the reliability of the BBC, well. . . .I think the spirit of the guideline is different than what you're posting here, but we can find something better, I suppose.  --Cpt ricard (talk) 05:25, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Duplication of sperm
How can this result in an XY genotype? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.114.144.233 (talk) 23:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Presumably this happens when two sperm enter the ovum, one with an X chromosome, the other with a Y, and no duplication occurs. When there's only one sperm (23X), it has to be duplicated (46XX). —82.40.89.223 (talk) 22:11, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 21:24, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Hydatidiform mole → Molar pregnancy – Already redirects here, this is the term used at the start of the article and would be more meaningful to the general reader. PatGallacher (talk) 19:03, 2 June 2013 (UTC) PatGallacher (talk) 19:03, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Why not a clone?
Why does the embryo go all weird rather than simply developing into a clone of the father? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 05:51, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * As I understand it, it wouldn't be a clone because of the father's 46 chromosomes, only 23 go into each sperm during meiosis. It would need two sperm with exactly corresponding chromosomes to replicate the whole genome, with a 1 in 2²³ (1 in 8 million) chance. Otherwise, the genome includes duplicated chromosomes and not enough genetic diversity.
 * The father had two alleles (versions) for each gene (one from his mother, one from his father), and if one was defective the other could make up for it (dominance (genetics)). Here, with some (two sperm) or all (one sperm twice) of the alleles duplicated, that's far less likely to happen, and the defective alleles win out. — 82.40.89.223 (talk) 22:44, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Could this explanation be added to the article? I thought the same as User:82.139.81.0 and I'm glad I found the explanation here. – Alensha   talk  01:28, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

The above explanation is correct in terms of explaining why the embryo is not a clone of the father. As for why the embryo isn't viable however, the most accepted explanation is due to imprinting of genes.

Most genes are expressed as two copies - one on the paternal chromosome and one on the maternal chromosome. Some genes however are imprinted, meaning that they are only expressed on either the paternal chromosome or the maternal chromosome. This uniparental expression is usually enforced by the repression of the inactivated gene through the addition of methyl groups in a process called DNA methylation.

An example of how important imprinting can be can be found by looking at the differences between Angelman syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome. Both syndromes are caused by the loss of the chromosomal region 15q11-13 (band 11 of the long arm of chromosome 15) but whether the child is affected with Angelman syndrome or Prader-Willi syndrome depends on whether the affected chromosome derives from the father or the mother.

The expression of imprinted genes also plays an important role in the development of the mammalian trophoblast, which explains why a hydatidiform mole cannot develop into a viable fetus.122.252.159.204 (talk) 21:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Q Re lack of nucleus
How does an ovum lose its nucleus, setting up the possibility of a molar pregnancy? 70.48.36.39 (talk) 22:03, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Simplify the intro
The introduction is written for technical specialists. It should be clear and simple for ordinary readers; put the technicalities after a simple explanation. A simple explanation would be something like this from the Cleveland Clinic: "A molar pregnancy occurs when an egg and sperm join incorrectly at fertilization and create a noncancerous tumor. The tumor looks like tiny water-filled sacs, similar to a cluster of grapes. The tumor can’t support a developing embryo and the pregnancy ends. Some people have a miscarriage. If this doesn’t happen, surgery is needed to remove the pregnancy. If left untreated, molar pregnancies can cause serious complications." (Copied text from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17889-molar-pregnancy.)

I don't want to do it myself because I have no expertise, but I may have to. Zaslav (talk) 17:07, 24 April 2024 (UTC)