A recent study published in Human Reproduction claimed that uterine lavage offers a non-surgical, minimally invasive strategy for the recovery of human embryos from fertile women who do not want or need IVF for medical reasons but who desire preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) for embryos. To prove this hypothesis, the researchers recruited dozens of young Mexican women. The prospective oocyte donors underwent ovarian stimulation to induce the production of multiple mature oocytes. Subsequently, these women were inseminated by donor semen. A few days later, the developing embryos were collected by uterine lavage (uterine flushing) and subjected to genetic testing for aneuploidies (PGT-A). Oocyte donors with persistently elevated hCG levels, indicating the implantation of one or more embryos after uterine lavage, had to undergo uterine curettage and/or treatment with methotrexate. A critical opinion paper discussing the aforementioned study was published by De Santis and colleagues and has raised critical issues that are largely technical in nature. However, this opinion paper neglects—from our point of view—critical issues of the Mexican study regarding ethical principles and moral standards in human research. These aspects are summarized below.

最近发表在《人类生殖》杂志上的一项研究声称，子宫灌洗提供了一种非手术、微创的策略，用于从出于医学原因不想或不需要试管婴儿但希望对胚胎进行植入前基因检测 (PGT) 的可育妇女身上恢复人类胚胎. 为了证明这一假设，研究人员招募了数十名年轻的墨西哥女性。预期的卵母细胞捐献者接受卵巢刺激以诱导多个成熟卵母细胞的产生。随后，这些妇女被捐赠者的精液授精。几天后，通过子宫灌洗（子宫冲洗）收集发育中的胚胎，并进行非整倍体基因检测 (PGT-A)。hCG 水平持续升高的卵母细胞供体，表明在子宫灌洗后植入了一个或多个胚胎，不得不接受刮宫术和/或甲氨蝶呤治疗。De Santis 及其同事发表了一篇讨论上述研究的批判性意见论文，并提出了主要是技术性的关键问题。然而，从我们的角度来看，这份意见书忽略了墨西哥研究中关于人类研究伦理原则和道德标准的关键问题。这些方面总结如下。