Editor's Choice
A randomized, non-inferiority trial on the DuoStim strategy in PGT-A cycles
Is the DuoStim strategy an effective alternative to two conventional ovarian stimulation cycles in poor-prognosis patients undergoing preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidies (PGT-A) to improve euploidy rates and obtain the first euploid embryo in less time?Concordance of PGT for aneuploidies between blastocyst biopsies and spent blastocyst culture medium
Non-invasive preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidies (niPGT-A) avoids the possible detrimental impact of invasive PGT-A on embryo development and clinical outcomes. Does cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from spent blastocyst culture medium (BCM) reflect embryonic chromosome status better than trophectoderm (TE) biopsy?Preimplantation genetic testing for human blastocysts with potential parental contamination using a quantitative parental contamination test (qPCT): an evidence-based study
Is it possible to develop a quantitative method for detecting parental DNA contamination in conventional IVF using preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A)?Ovulation induction using sequential letrozole/gonadotrophin in infertile women with PCOS: a randomized controlled trial
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common ovarian endocrine disease in women of reproductive age (Conway et al., 2014), with an incidence among premenopausal women of up to 20% when applying Rotterdam criteria (Yildiz et al., 2012). Oligo-ovulation is the most important and classic clinical manifestation of PCOS (Escobar-Morreale, 2018), and the resulting infertility is the major cause of anovulatory infertility (Balen and Michelmore, 2002), which affects many infertile women of reproductive age.Comparison of different endometrial preparation protocols on frozen embryo transfer pregnancy outcome in patients with normal ovulation
What is the effect of letrozole use in patients undergoing frozen embryo transfer (FET) with normal ovulation? Although the number of FETs is increasing, an optimal protocol for FET (particularly vitrified–warmed embryo transfer) is yet to be determined. The aim of this study was to evaluate letrozole use on patients with normal menstrual cycles compared with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) cycles and natural cycles.Supporting first FSH dosage for ovarian stimulation with machine learning
Although significant strides have been made in the last 40 years, the mean pregnancy rate after an IVF cycle still hovers around 30%, with a 20% chance of delivery (De Geyter et al., 2018). An important requisite to the success of an IVF cycle is the availability of a certain number of mature oocytes (metaphase III [MII]); usually obtained after ovarian stimulation.Does the HCG trigger dose used for IVF impact luteal progesterone concentrations? a randomized controlled trial
Is there an association between the ovulation trigger dose of human chorionic gonadotrophin (HCG) and endogenous progesterone production during the luteal phase?Similar fertilization rates and preimplantation embryo development among testosterone-treated transgender men and cisgender women
What are the effects of testosterone treatment on oocyte fertilization and preimplantation embryo development among transgender men who have undergone fertility preservation?Comparison of predictive models for cumulative live birth rate after treatment with ART
Can a machine learning model better predict the cumulative live birth rate for a couple after intrauterine insemination or embryo transfer than Cox regression based on their personal characteristics?Non-invasive embryo selection strategy for clinical IVF to avoid wastage of potentially competent embryos
Can a non-invasive embryo transfer strategy provide a reference for embryo selection to be established?Testicular biopsy for fertility preservation in early-diagnosed Klinefelter patients: patient characteristics and long-term follow-up
Which early-diagnosed Klinefelter syndrome patients have been offered cryopreservation of testicular tissue as part of fertility preservation before spermatogonial stem cell (SSC) loss? Do these Klinefelter syndrome patients present with behavioural, cognitive and/or psychological problems? Does a testicular biopsy procedure have long-term effects on the gonadal development of Klinefelter syndrome patients?Pregnancy, fertility concerns and fertility preservation procedures in a national study of French breast cancer survivors
What are the real-life oncofertility practices in young women diagnosed with breast cancer?Does underlying infertility in natural conception modify the epigenetic control of imprinted genes and transposable elements in newborns?
Does the epigenetic control of imprinted genes and transposable elements at birth differ according to time to conception in natural conception and after intrauterine insemination (IUI)?A microenvironment of high lactate and low pH created by the blastocyst promotes endometrial receptivity and implantation
Is the blastocyst's idiosyncratic metabolic production of lactate, and creation of a specialized microenvironment at the implatation site, an important mediator of maternal–fetal signalling to promote endometrial receptivity and implantation?Comparison of methods for isolation and quantification of circulating cell-free DNA from patients with endometriosis
Endometriosis is a common oestrogen-dependent benign disease, which is defined by the presence of endometrial-like tissue outside of the uterus. Clinical features associated with endometriosis are chronic pelvic pain, pain during intercourse, dysmenorrhoea and infertility (Bulun, 2009; Burghaus et al., 2019). Endometriosis can be detected in 25–50% of infertile women, and 30–50% of women with endometriosis are infertile (Bulletti et al., 2010). Endometriosis affects the receptivity of the endometrium and the development of the oocyte and embryo, leading to significant lower pregnancy rates by natural conception and by IVF (Barnhart et al., 2002; de Ziegler et al., 2010).Clinical outcomes and utilization from over a decade of planned oocyte cryopreservation
An age-related decline in fertility is a well-known physiologic effect related to decreases in oocyte quantity and quality (ACOG and ASRM, 2014). Older women who conceive naturally have an increased risk of fetal chromosomal abnormalities and pregnancy loss (Spandorfer and Chung, 2004). Despite this association, a global shift towards delayed childbearing has occurred (OECD Family Database, OECD, 2019). Age at first birth and the proportion of pregnancies in women over the age of 35 years have been increasing in the USA since 1980 (Martin et al., 2019).IVF impact on the risk of recurrence of endometrial adenocarcinoma after fertility-sparing management
Do IVF treatments after conservative management of endometrial atypical hyperplasia or grade 1 endometrial adenocarcinoma (AH/EC) increase the risk of disease recurrence?The inhibition of WIP1 phosphatase accelerates the depletion of primordial follicles
What role does wild-type p53-induced phosphatase 1 (WIP1) play in the regulation of primordial follicle development?Whether to transfer mosaic embryos: a cytogenetic view of true mosaicism by amniocentesis
Preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidies has increasingly been employed for embryo selection, resulting in a recent surge in mosaic embryos. According to the cytogenetic results, which types of mosaic embryo survive early pregnancy, progress to the second trimester and finally result in a live birth?Spatial and temporal changes in follicle distribution in the human ovarian cortex
How does follicle distribution evolve in the human ovarian cortex between the ages of 20 and 35 years?miR-532-3p: a possible altered miRNA in cumulus cells of infertile women with advanced endometriosis
Is the profile of microRNA (miRNA) altered in cumulus cells of infertile women with early (EI/II) and advanced (EIII/IV) endometriosis?An artificial intelligence model based on the proteomic profile of euploid embryos and blastocyst morphology: a preliminary study
The two main factors responsible for the success of an IVF treatment are the endometrium and the embryo (Edwards et al., 1984). Non-invasive methods (morphological and morphokinetic) as well as invasive methods (genetic testing) are currently used in IVF laboratories in embryo selection. However, new approaches to select embryos are still being investigated due to the limited improvement in live birth rate over the last few years (Dyer et al., 2016; De Geyter et al., 2018).Do fertility tracking applications offer women useful information about their fertile window?
To characterize mobile fertility tracking applications (apps) to determine the use of such apps for women trying to conceive by identifying the fertile window.Same-sex male couples and single men having children using assisted reproductive technology: a quantitative analysis
How do same-sex male couples (SSMC) and single men perceive their experience of using assisted reproductive technology (ART) in Canada; what factors contribute to their experience and the decisions made throughout the ART process?The prevalence, promotion and pricing of three IVF add-ons on fertility clinic websites
How are IVF clinic websites advertising three common IVF add-ons: assisted hatching, time-lapse embryo imaging and preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidies (PGT-A)?Candidate genes for age at menarche are associated with endometriosis
Are the candidate genes for age at menarche associated with a risk of endometriosis?The performance of the Elecsys® anti-Müllerian hormone assay in predicting extremes of ovarian response to corifollitropin alfa
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)?Maternal and perinatal outcomes in programmed versus natural vitrified–warmed blastocyst transfer cycles
Do maternal and perinatal outcomes differ between natural and programmed frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycles?Prospective randomized multicentre comparison on sibling oocytes comparing G-Series media system with antioxidants versus standard G-Series media system
Does the inclusion of three antioxidants (A3), acetyl-l-carnitine (ALC), N-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC) and alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) improve human embryo development and pregnancy potential?Durations of intrauterine balloon therapy and adhesion reformation after hysteroscopic adhesiolysis: a randomized controlled trial
Does placing an intrauterine balloon for different durations (7, 14 or 28 days) affect the recurrence of intrauterine adhesions after hysteroscopic adhesiolysis?Identification of research priorities in infertility and assisted reproduction: an international, multicentre study
What are the main research interests among patients of assisted reproductive technologies (ART)?‘There is only one thing that is truly important in an IVF laboratory: everything’ Cairo Consensus Guidelines on IVF Culture Conditions
This proceedings report presents the outcomes from an international expert meeting to establish consensus guidelines on IVF culture conditions. Topics reviewed and discussed were: embryo culture – basic principles and interactions; temperature in the IVF laboratory; humidity in culture; carbon dioxide control and medium pH; oxygen tension for embryo culture; workstations – design and engineering; incubators – maintaining the culture environment; micromanipulation – maintaining a steady physcochemical environment; handling practices; assessment practices; culture media – buffering and pH, general composition and protein supplementation, sequential or single-step media for human embryo culture; use and management – cold chain and storage; test equipment – calibration and certification; and laboratory equipment and real-time monitoring.Risk factors associated with pre-eclampsia in pregnancies conceived by ART
What are the factors associated with the increased incidence of pre-eclampsia in pregnancies conceived through IVF using autologous oocytes?Ovarian stimulation for oocyte vitrification does not modify disease-free survival and overall survival rates in patients with early breast cancer
Does ovarian stimulation for oocyte vitrification affect disease-free survival and overall survival rates in women with early breast cancer?Childbirth close to natural menopause: does age at menopause matter?
Does a successful spontaneous pregnancy in the years close to natural menopause depend on age at menopause?Differential impacts of gonadotrophins, IVF and embryo culture on mouse blastocyst development
Conception via assisted reproductive technology (ART) increases the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in adulthood. Underlying differences between ART-conceived and in-vivo-conceived embryos that contribute to this increased risk are, however, not known.Human growth hormone for poor responders: a randomized placebo-controlled trial provides no evidence for improved live birth rate
Does the addition of human growth hormone (HGH) to an IVF cycle improve the live birth rate in previously documented poor responders to FSH?Protective effect of oestrogen receptor α-PvuII transition against idiopathic male infertility: a case-control study and meta-analysis
Is there any genetic association between oestrogen receptor alpha [ERα]-PvuII polymorphism and idiopathic male infertility?Overnight ovarian tissue transportation for centralized cryobanking: a feasible option
Is overnight transportation of ovarian tissue before cryopreservation in a centralized cryobank from the FertiPROTEKT network feasible?Autologous endometrial cell co-culture improves human embryo development to high-quality blastocysts: a randomized controlled trial
Does autologous endometrial cell co-culture (AECC) improve the number of good-quality blastocysts obtained by IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), compared with conventional embryo culture medium in a broad group of patients referred to assisted reproductive technology (ART)?Morphokinetic parameters in chromosomal translocation carriers undergoing preimplantation genetic testing
Can embryo morphokinetic parameters help identify unbalanced embryos in translocation carriers?The impact of maternal lifestyle factors on periconception outcomes: a systematic review of observational studies
The main risk factors for important reproductive health issues such as subfertility and perinatal mortality largely originate in the periconception period. To evaluate associations between modifiable maternal lifestyle factors and periconception outcomes, a systematic search was conducted for relevant studies published from 1990 to February 2017 on Embase, Medline, Web of Science, Cochrane database, PubMed and Google Scholar. The initial search identified 6166 articles, of which 49 studies were eligible for inclusion.The uterine fibroid/myoma tumour: analysis of the global research architecture using density-equalizing mapping
Uterine fibroids can severely impact a woman’s quality of life, result in significant morbidity and are a leading indication for hysterectomy. Many aspects of the disease remain largely obscure. Despite these knowledge gaps, no detailed maps of the global fibroid research architecture have yet been generated. This study used the NewQIS approach to assess worldwide research productivity, encompassing numerous aspects of the scientific output, quality and socioeconomic features. Regression analysis indicated an increase in fibroid research activity in the investigated time periods.Perinatal outcomes after gestational surrogacy versus autologous IVF: analysis of national data
Anonymized data were obtained from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority to determine whether gestational surrogacy influences perinatal outcomes compared with pregnancies after autologous IVF. A total of 103,160 singleton live births, including 244 after gestational surrogacy, 87,571 after autologous fresh IVF and intractyoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and 15,345 after autologous frozen embryo transfers were analysed. Perinatal outcomes of pretern birth (PTB), low birth weight (LBW) and high birth weight (HBW) were compared.Timing therapeutic donor inseminations in natural cycles: human chorionic gonadotrophin administration versus urinary LH monitoring
This cohort study assessed whether timing therapeutic donor sperm inseminations (TDI) in natural cycles (NC) using ultrasound monitoring and ovulation trigger with human chorionic gonadotrophin (US/HCG) improves cumulative live birth rates (LBR) compared with detection of LH surge with urinary kits (u-LH). It included 232 normo-ovulatory women aged ≤40 years, undergoing 538 TDI in NC between 2011 and 2014. In the u-LH group (113 women, 267 cycles), TDI was performed the day following a positive test.Bio-equivalent doses of recombinant HCG and recombinant LH during ovarian stimulation result in similar oestradiol output: a randomized controlled study
In nature, HCG is secreted by the implanting embryo from peri-implantation and onwards. In contrast, LH is mandatory for steroidogenesis and follicular development during the follicular phase, working in synergy with FSH. Moreover, LH is mandatory for the function of the corpus luteum. Although LH and HCG bind to the same receptor, significant molecular, structural and functional differences exist, inducing differences in bioactivity. This randomized controlled study compared the effect of recombinant FSH stimulation combined with daily either micro-dose recombinant HCG or recombinant LH supplementation in a 1:1 bioactivity ratio from day 1 of stimulation in a long gonadotrophin releasing hormone agonist down regulation protocol.Chromosomal polymorphisms are associated with female infertility and adverse reproductive outcomes after infertility treatment: a 7-year retrospective study
Data from 19,950 women were retrospectively analysed to determine the effect of chromosomal polymorphisms on female infertility and pregnancy outcome; fertile women were used as controls. Frequency of chromosomal polymorphisms and adverse pregnancy outcomes were compared between groups. A significantly higher incidence of chromosomal polymorphisms was found in total infertile patients, and patients with tubal infertility, ovulatory dysfunction, cervical and uterine abnormalities, and unexplained infertility compared with controls (5.53% [P < 0.001], 4.86% [P = 0.012] 5.40% [P < 0.001], 5.75% [P < 0.001] and 8.51% [P < 0.001], versus 3.74%, respectively).Live birth derived from oocyte spindle transfer to prevent mitochondrial disease
Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are maternally inherited and can cause fatal or debilitating mitochondrial disorders. The severity of clinical symptoms is often associated with the level of mtDNA mutation load or degree of heteroplasmy. Current clinical options to prevent transmission of mtDNA mutations to offspring are limited. Experimental spindle transfer in metaphase II oocytes, also called mitochondrial replacement therapy, is a novel technology for preventing mtDNA transmission from oocytes to pre-implantation embryos.Ovarian tissue cryopreservation in female-to-male transgender people: insights into ovarian histology and physiology after prolonged androgen treatment
Female-to-male transgender people (trans men), are faced with the risk of losing their reproductive potential owing to gender affirming hormone treatment and genital reconstructive surgery. Transgender people also tend to start sex reassignment treatment at a young age, when reproductive wishes are not yet clearly defined nor fulfilled (De Sutter, 2001). About one-half of trans men, however, express the desire to have children (Wierckx et al., 2012). It is, therefore, recommended by the most recent Standards of Care of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health to clearly discuss fertility and fertility preservation before any treatment (Coleman et al., 2012).‘Model’ versus ‘everyday’ patients: can randomized controlled trial data really be applied to the clinic?
New drug approval requires a new drug to undergo rigorous clinical trials to determine its efficacy and safety. A drug is approved only for the population on which it was tested, i.e. those who meet the inclusion criteria of the trial. The aim of this study was to determine what percentage of ‘real life’ patients in our clinic meet the inclusion and exclusion criteria used in large-scale clinical trials required for drug registration in the field of assisted reproduction. All 265 consecutive patients with pertinent data treated in a tertiary centre IVF Unit during 2015 were surveyed.
