Research Question The question of interest for this study is to examine the chance of a live birth following assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment in women with epilepsy, compared to women without epilepsy. In sub-analyses the chance of biochemical and clinical pregnancies is analysed, and the impact of anti-epileptic drugs (AED) treatment prior to embryo transfer. Design This register-based

Research question: Proinflammatory Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs), highly elevated within the uterine cavity of obese women, compromise endometrial function. Do AGEs also impact preimplantation embryo development and function? Design: Mouse embryos were cultured in AGEs equimolar to uterine fluid concentrations in lean (1 or 2 μM) or obese (4 or 8 μM) women. Differential nuclear staining identified

Research question Does adenomyosis impact IVF independent of decreased ovarian reserve, and what are the characteristics and IVF outcome of ultra-long GnRH-agonist protocol in adenomyosis༟ Design We carried out an observational cohort study with three groups of patients who were treated with IVF. Group A:362 patients with adenomyosis using the ultra-long GnRH-agonist protocol. Group B:127 patients

Research Question What are the unmet needs after psychosocial counselling and mental health of women who opt for donor sperm treatment (DST) and are unmet counselling needs related to their mental health? Design We conducted a quantitative study and included women in a heterosexual relationship (n = 19), women in a lesbian relationship (n = 25) and single women (n = 51) who opted for DST. We included

Research Question GnRH agonist trigger after GnRH antagonist-based ovarian stimulation protocol for IVF is gaining popularity, because it prevents ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome, and allows for near physiological LH and FSH surges. Small dose of hCG (1500 IU) on the day of oocyte retrieval, followed by daily progesterone administration, is currently the preferred way to secure adequate luteal support

RESEARCH QUESTION: Do uterine procedures potentially disrupting the endometrial-myometrial interface (EMI) induce adenomyosis? DESIGN: We conducted 6 prospective, randomized and controlled experimentations involving a total of 106 female Balb/C and 12 C57/BL6 mice. We evaluated the incidence of adenomyosis in two strains of mouse with mechanically induced EMI disruption (EMID) and in mouse with thermally

Research question How are IVF clinic websites advertising three common IVF add-ons: assisted hatching, time-lapse embryo imaging and preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A)? Design The HFEA “Choose a fertility clinic” website was used to identify IVF clinics and their websites. Assisted hatching, time-lapse embryo imaging and PGT-A were examined to determine which websites advertised

Research question The major causes of in vitro fertilization (IVF) failure in women with endometriosis have been attributed to decreased ovarian reserve, low quality of embryos and impaired receptivity of endometrium. Dienogest (DNG) has anti-inflammatory and anti-angiogenic activity; thus, it may theoretically improve IVF outcomes in women with endometriosis. This study aimed to evaluate the administration

Study question : Does the relative distribution of AMH isoforms differ from one patient to another depending on their BMI and PCOS status in the serum and the follicular fluid (FF)? Design Obese and normal weight (NW) patients (PCOS:70; non-PCOS:37) were selected from a database (2014-1018) for this case-control study in the serum. Between 2018 and 2019, obese (N = 19) and NW(N = 20) women with or

Fertility societies worldwide responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by recommending that fertility clinics close, or sharply reduce, the clinical operation, leading to a shift in the management of IVF laboratories in three phases: shutdown preparation; maintenance during shutdown; and restart. Each of these phases carries distinct risks that need identification and mitigation, forcing laboratory managers

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization, halting the principal income activities worldwide. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the imminent economic recession will be worse than the global financial crisis of 2008, which severely affected the economy of Southern European countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain. There

Fertility care providers have an obligation to provide safe and effective care to patients. When a user of assisted reproductive technology (ART) is living with a blood-borne viral infection (BBVI: HIV, hepatitis C or hepatitis B), physicians and ART laboratory personnel need to know the requirements for providing quality care. Recent developments in the treatment of BBVI and understanding of transmission

Research question To evaluate pre-existing comorbidities, obstetric risk factors and adverse obstetric and neonatal outcomes in pregnancies conceived by oocyte donation, compared with naturally conceived pregnancies or by conventional IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF/ICSI). Design This retrospective single-centre contemporary cohort study reviewed data from singleton deliveries at the University

The success rate of medical and surgical treatment for endometriosis is limited. Empowering patients suffering from endometriosis by giving them opportunities to positively influence their symptoms could result in increased quality of life. Changing diet is one of these self-management activities, but current endometriosis diets are mostly based on limited evidence. In order to gain more insight into

Research question What are the potential differences between lean women with and without polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in fat content in liver, vertebrae, paraspinal muscles, pancreas, subcutaneous (SCAT) and visceral adipose tissue (VAT)? Magnetic resonance imaging proton density fat fraction (PDFF) was used to establish these differences. This is a novel, non-invasive, operator-independent method

Research question Can freezing samples (cells vs tissues) and additive cryoprotectant agents contribute to efficient cryopreservation of primate spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs)? Design Testicular tissues or cells from four prepubertal monkey were used in this study (n = 4). After comparison of the freezing efficacy of testicular tissue with cell suspensions using conventional freezing media (1.4 M

Research Question Can we establish a visualized clinical model predicting good quality blastocyst (GQB) formation for patients in their first in vitro fertilization (IVF)/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) cycle? Design A total of 4,783 patients in their first IVF/ICSI cycle between January 2015 and December 2019 were retrospectively included and randomly divided into the training set (n=3826)

Research Question Can SARS-CoV-2 induce testis damage and dysfunction? Design Description of the case of a young man presenting with heavy testicular pain as the first symptom of COVID-19. A review of the literature is also presented Results SARS-CoV-2 may enter into the host cell by binding to ACE2. This receptor seems to be widely expressed in different testicular cell types making possible the occurrence

Research question In vitro maturation (IVM) of oocytes recovered during ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) is often practiced although it is still considered experimental. To date, only a few studies have examined the success of this maturation process in pre-menarche girls. This study aimed to examine the outcomes of IVM of oocytes recovered during OTC in very young patients scheduled for onco-therapy

RESEARCH QUESTION Day of cryopreservation, inner cell mass (ICM) grade, trophectoderm (TE) grade and blastocyst expansion grade have been associated with differences in live birth rate in frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycles. We sought to examine the likelihood of live birth and whether blastocyst morphologic grade is more or equally useful in FET cycles among PGT-A tested and untested blastocysts.

Research Question Is the sole measurement of total testosterone (TT) sufficient for assessing the presence of hyperandrogenism (HA) in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)? Design Serum samples from 294 patients with PCOS who met the Rotterdam criteria were used for the analysis of TT by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and chemiluminescent immunoassay (CLIA)

Oocyte vitrification is an attractive and efficient option in the long-term management of endometriosis patients. Which women would benefit from banked oocytes when pregnancy is attempted and whether ovarian freezing should be performed before or after the surgical management of endometriosis is still debated. Based on recent data and in the absence of a cost-effective modelling, a personalized strategy

Research Question Is there an association between diet and poor ovarian response to controlled hyperstimulation in women with normal biomarkers of ovarian reserve? Design Women eligible for IVF at an Academic Fertility Center were invited to participate to this prospective cross-sectional study. Main inclusion criteria were: age 18-39 years, BMI 18-25 Kg/m2, preserved ovarian reserve (Antral Follicle

Research Question To (a) identify any changes in the use of different counting chambers by laboratories enrolled in an Australian-based external quality assurance (EQA) programme over time, and (b) assess the performance of the four major counting chambers used (improved Neubauer haemocytometers, Makler® counting chambers and Kova and Vetriplast chambers) in terms of accuracy and precision Design Samples

Research Question - Whether baseline transvaginal ultrasound measured, uterine size parameters predict live birth after single embryo transfer (SET) of a high-quality blastocyst. Design – A retrospective cohort study including women who underwent their first SET between August 2010 and March 2014 at a large university hospital reproductive center. The effects of baseline uterine dimensions on live

Research question The objective of this investigation is to determine the daily follitropin delta dose (µg) providing similar ovarian response compared to 150 IU/day follitropin alfa. Design Post-hoc analysis of ovarian response in 1,591 IVF/ICSI patients undergoing controlled ovarian stimulation in a GnRH antagonist protocol in two recent randomized, assessor-blind, controlled trials in the development

The value of artificial intelligence (AI) to benefit infertile patients is a subject of debate. This paper presents the experience of one aspect of AI, machine learning (ML), coupled with patient empathy to improve utilisation of assisted reproduction technologies (ART), which is an important aspect of care that is under recognised. Although ART provides very effective options for infertile patients

Research Question Does long-term reproductive outcome after early pregnancy loss differ between women who were treated with misoprostol and surgical aspiration. Design We performed a historic cohort study of all women who were diagnosed with EPL (≤12 weeks), in a single medical center, between September 2016 and August 2017, and were treated with either misoprostol or surgical aspiration. Women who

Research question What were the trends in utilization, outcomes and practices in assisted reproductive technology (ART) in Africa between 2013 and 2017? Design Cycle-based data and retrospective summary data were collected cross-sectionally from voluntarily participating ART centres. Results During the 5-year period, 153, 316 ART procedures were reported from 73 centres in 18 countries. ART utilization

Research Question Discontinuation of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycles has been part of the radical transformation of healthcare provision to enable reallocation of staff and resources to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. We sought to estimate the impact of cessation of treatment on individual prognosis and United States population live-birth rates. Design Data from 271,438 ovarian stimulation UK

Research question Can a deep machine learning artificial intelligence algorithm predict ploidy and implantation in a known data set of static blastocyst images, and how does its performance compare against chance and experienced embryologists? Design A database of blastocyst images with known outcome was applied with an algorithm dubbed ERICA (embryo ranking intelligent classification algorithm). ERICA

Research Question Does 3-month GnRH agonist (GnRHa) treatment before IVF improve clinical pregnancy rate in infertile patients with endometriosis? Design Single-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trial in which 200 infertile women with endometriosis were assigned to use GnRHa (Study group) or placebo (Control group) for 3 months prior to an IVF treatment. Clinical and embryological outcomes and stimulation

Research question: To determine if there is a correlation between the serum metabolic profile and the endometriosis phenotype. Design: This was a pilot study nestled in a prospective cohort study at a University hospital, including forty-six patients with painful endometriosis who had surgery, and 21 controls who did not have macroscopic endometriotic lesions. Endometriosis was strictly classified

Research Question . Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) do not show protein translation but do have gene regulatory functions in several disease states. Studies have shown that lncRNA differ in overweight PCOS women with increased insulin resistance and hyperandrogenemia. The objective of this study was to determine lncRNA in serum in age and weight matched non-obese women with and without PCOS. Methods

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess the effect of estrogen therapy as a preoperative intervention for improving clinical outcomes and fertility outcomes in women with intrauterine adhesions (IUAs). A systematic search of PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, clinicaltrials.gov, OVID, and Chinese databases was carried out to identify relevant studies published before December 2019

Research Question To investigate the relation between risk factors associated with the vaginal microbiota and outcomes of cervical cerclage. Design A retrospective cohort study of singleton pregnancies with cervical cerclage was conducted. Participants underwent a vaginal microbiota assay, including morphological examination and functional vaginal microecological analysis using a vaginitis multi-test

Research question Does the use of preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) improve outcomes in couples with severe male factor infertility (SMFI)? Design : This retrospective cohort study included SMFI cases that underwent blastocyst transfer with/without PGT-A. Inclusion criteria were SMFI (azoospermia and sperm count<1 million/mL), woman aged 25-39 years, single vitrified-warmed blastocyst

Research Question To identify corrective measures aimed at reducing the risk of aerosol-mediated viral infection within an IVF laboratory. Design A Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) was conducted by a multidisciplinary IVF team. A schematic representation of new protocols and procedures adopted during COVID-19 emergency has been defined, including directives about the behavior to adopt when

The interest in and understanding of the human microbiome has grown remarkably over the past years. Advances in molecular techniques have allowed researchers to identify and study the microbiota and also use this information to develop therapeutic solutions for a spectrum of conditions. Alongside the growing interest in the microbiome, societal changes have resulted in many couples looking to start

Covid-19 pandemic has increased significantly to mortality in many countries with the number of infected cases increasing exponentially worldwide. One of the main determining factors of the poor prognosis in these patients is the development of coagulopathy. Moreover, it is well known that ART procedures confer a risk of thromboembolic complications. In this commentary we analize specific coexisting

Research question: Immunological dysfunction and impaired autophagy are involved in the pathophysiology of endometriosis. A growing body of evidence suggests that the uterus is a non-sterile compartment and the human endometrium is an important site of innate immune defense. Autophagy balances inflammation during the innate immune response and prevents excessive inflammation. However, it is not clear

Research Question: Is GSTM1 and GSTT1 deletion associated with the development of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)? Design: A case-control study was designed to investigate the association of GSTM1 and GSTT1 gene polymorphisms with PCOS. Case subjects, 201 blood samples of women diagnosed with subfertility. 69 women were diagnosed with PCOS. 161 fertile female controls were selected in Obstetrics Consultation

Research question Is there a difference in ovarian reserve biomarkers and ovarian response between the right and left ovaries of infertile women undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments? Design A total of 100 infertile women, age 27-37, diagnosed with either unexplained, male factor or mechanical factor infertility, participated in the study. All women had both ovaries intact, regular menstrual

Research question The study aims to evaluate the presence of superficial peritoneal endometriosis (SUP) in women referred to emergency surgery for right iliac fossa (RIF) pain and undergoing an appendectomy, considering which factors may be useful to suspect and identify endometriosis. Design An observational case-control study was conducted on a group (n=149) of fertile age women. After surgery, group

Research question Ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) and subsequent re-transplantation is gaining ground as a valid technique to preserve fertility in patients facing imminent cancer treatment. This study explores patients’ experiences with ovarian tissue cryopreservation and transplantation, including their reflections on long-term storage of tissue and the use of surplus tissue. Design Semi-structured

The emergence of the novel coronavirus infection that arose in Wuhan, China in December 2019 has resulted in an epidemic that has quickly expanded to become one of the most significant public health threats in recent times. Unfortunately, the disease has spread globally. On March 11th (2020) World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a pandemic and has called governments to take urgent and aggressive

Research question: What are the protein levels and localization of oestrogen receptors (including ERa, ERb and G protein-coupled oestrogen receptor [GPER]) and hypoxia-inducible factor-1alpha (HIF-1a) in normal control endometrium (COEM) and ectopic endometrium from abdominal wall endometriosis (AWE). Design: AWE (n = 20) were obtained during surgery; COEM (n = 40) were collected by curettage. All

Research question What is the performance of anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) as measured by the Elecsys® AMH assay in predicting ovarian response in women treated with 150 µg corifollitropin alfa (CFA)? Design Multicentre, prospective study conducted between December 2015 and April 2018. Women were aged 18–43 years, had regular menstrual bleeding, a body mass index of 17–35 kg/m2 and weighed 60 kg or

Research question Does the presence of ovarian endometriomas affect ovarian response to ovarian stimulation after adjusting for age and ovarian reserve markers? Design This retrospective cross-sectional study compared the ovarian response between patients with ovarian endometriomas and women with other infertility factors undergoing their first ovarian stimulation for IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection

Asherman syndrome is a rare acquired clinical condition resulting in the obliteration of the uterine cavity causedby the presence of partial or complete fibrous intrauterine adhesions involving at least two-thirds of the uterine cavity potentially obstructing the internal cervical orifice. Common reported symptoms of the disease are alterations of the menstrual pattern with decreased menstrual bleeding

Research questions Can a previously defined relationship between sperm capacitation and the probability of a man generating pregnancy within three cycles, prospectively predict male fertility in diverse clinical settings? A second study asked, what is the prevalence of impaired sperm fertilizing ability in men questioning their fertility (MQF), and does this relate to traditional semen analysis metrics

Research question What are the clinical characteristics of pregnancies complicated by fetal growth restriction (FGR) and preeclampsia in patients who have undergone IVF, and what is the correlation between these complications and histopathological placental findings in such pregnancies. Design A retrospective cohort of patients who had delivered their babies at our institution who had been diagnosed

The outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has become a major pandemic threat worldwide. Such a public health emergency can greatly impact various aspects of people's health and lives. This paper focuses on its potential risks for reproductive health, including the reproductive system and its functioning, as well as gamete and embryo development, which could be affected by the virus

Research question Does obesity affect endometrial gene expression in women with endometriosis, specifically women with stage I disease? Design Differential gene expression analysis was conducted on endometrium from women with and without endometriosis (n = 169). Women were diagnosed after surgical visualization and staged according to the revised American Society for Reproductive Medicine (stage I-IV)

Research question This study explored the relationship between anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and oocyte survival after vitrification. The association between AMH and blastocyst formation after oocyte vitrification was also assessed. Design A retrospective observational analysis was performed in a private IVF centre. A total of 4507 metaphase-II warmed oocytes were included from 450 couples, predominantly

Research Question Are there differences in the cardio-metabolic health of ICSI-conceived adolescents compared to a control group, taking parental risk factors into account? Design ICSI-conceived adolescents (n=272), their mothers (n=271) and naturally conceived control adolescents (n=273) and their mothers (n=273) provided a blood test and answered a health related questionnaire. The adolescents also

The purpose of this Commentary is to assess whether the designation by New York State Department of Health of “sexual and reproductive health services as essential” is consonant with the seemingly divergent objectives of providing patient-centered care and advancing national public health objectives in the resource-constrained setting of a global pandemic.

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) is a serious, almost exclusively iatrogenic complication of controlled ovarian stimulation (COH). Many techniques have developed over the last 25 years to decrease OHSS risks, most of which have been commonly used for 15-20 years. In light of these techniques, it could be hypothesized that severe OHSS rates would decrease or almost disappear. However, according

RESEARCH QUESTION Is there any difference in the clinical performance of personalized embryo transfer (pET) guided by the endometrial receptivity analysis (ERA) versus frozen embryo transfer (FET) or fresh embryo transfer (ET) in infertile patients undergoing IVF? DESIGN Multicenter, open-label RCT including 458 patients ≤ 37 years undergoing IVF with blastocyst transfer at their first appointment

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its associated Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has demanded rapid upscaling of in-vitro diagnostic assays to enable mass screening and testing of high-risk groups, and simultaneous ascertainment of robust data on past SARS-CoV-2 exposure at an individual and population level. To meet the exponential demand in testing