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(sz) High levels of mercury present in hair analysis correlates with lower numbers of oocytes retrieved in women undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF), researchers reported here at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM).
Joseph O. Doyle, MD, Vincent Memorial Obstetrics and Gynecology Service, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States, presented the preliminary results of this ongoing study here on October 16.
“Our [patient] population consists only of patients in the Boston area, so this study is looking at an East Coast population and their mercury levels,” said Dr. Doyle.
Dr. Doyle and colleagues conducted their study to determine whether there is a correlation between hair mercury level, embryo quality, and early developmental outcomes of the infants among women presenting for initiation of fertility treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital.
For the prospective cohort study, the researchers collected proximal hair samples 3-cm in length and determined their total mercury content. They compared the mercury content of the study population with the national median and with levels determined to be safe by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). more…

From: »Doctor’s Guide Channels«

(wz) Men with sperm abnormalities, such as DNA-fragmented spermatozoa, are usually given a chance to father a child through intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), instead of the regular in vitro fertilization (IVF). Either ICSI or IVF technique is recommended based on standard sperm characteristics, yet they are not good enough markers, judging from the rates of success of the treatment.
A team of German researchers approached this issue from the point of view of sperm genome quality, and are drawing the line between good and bad sperm at age 35, according to a study reported here at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM).
The researchers triggered the DNA fragmentation, or rather the amount of sperm with fragmented DNA and attempted to correlate it with the patient’s age, explained Thomas Winkle, Doctoral Researcher, Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics, ReproGen-Ulm, Ulm, Germany, in an interview on October 16.
Semen samples were collected from all patients accrued in this study at the IVF-Zentrum, Ulm, Germany. Patients were between 24 and 47 years old. more…

From: »Doctor’s Guide Channels«

(cz) A thickened zona pellucida is a frequently used yet poorly defined predictor of pregnancy outcome in patients undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) with assisted hatching.
However, the results of a prospective study on assisted hatching clearly indicate that the concept of thickened zona pellucida is irrelevant in determining whether assisted hatching has clinical benefit or not, researchers reported here at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM).
Lead author Andrea R. Hagemann, MD, Chief Resident, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States, and colleagues described the results here on October 15.
Dr. Hageman and colleagues aimed to determine the relationship between zone pellucida thickness and clinical pregnancy rates in patients less than 38 years of age undergoing IVF. A secondary objective was to define the zona pellucida thickness at which assisted hatching is beneficial, to provide an evidence-based definition of the concept of thickened zona pellucida, explained the researchers.
This was a randomised, controlled, double-blind study of assisted hatching that enrolled 162 patients between April 20, 2004, and February 1, 2007, said Dr. Hagemann and colleagues. more…

From: »Doctor’s Guide Channels«

(sz) It’s not quite the seven ages of man, but there is certainly a preoccupation with the exits and entrances of men and women in the papers this morning.
First, the mewling and puking, and the Independent splashes with a photo of twin babies, the first to be conceived in the UK as the result of a pioneering fertility treatment. “A cheap, painless alternative to IVF?” asks the paper.
In Vitro Maturation, the new technique used to make the babies, dispenses with the use of costly fertility drugs, saving up to £1,500 on the normal price of treatment. It is also safer for the one in three women among those seeking fertility treatment who have polycystic ovaries. The babies were conceived using eggs that were removed from their mother’s ovaries while still undeveloped and then matured artificially in the laboratory before being fertilised with their father’s sperm.
Meanwhile, the Times features a large picture of a twelve-week-old foetus on its front page and reports that MPs are planning the most extensive liberalisation of abortion laws for 40 years. The MPs will propose that women should be allowed to seek an abortion on the basis of informed consent - dropping the requirement for two doctors’ signatures - and to perform the second stage of a medical termination at home rather than at a hospital or clinic. more…

From: »The Guardian Unlimited«

(sz) Good old reliable aspirin has many uses, besides what it was designed to do, relive pain. It had been shown that, when taken daily it could lower the risk of having a heart attack, stroke, and other conditions that are associated with proper blood flow. Of course, there are in inevitable side effects like kidney failure, bleeding problems and certain kinds of strokes. But there is one thing the researchers say it cannot do and that is to help women who are taking in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments become pregnant. Or can it?
There has been talk going around about taking low does aspirin to improve blood flow to the uterus and thereby improving the ovaries responses to the treatments.
All of the research that has been previously done has come up with inconsistent results. Some have shown that the aspirin does work, other show just the opposite and still others show that it could increase the rate of miscarriages. more….

From: »Associated Content«

(sz) The pregnancy rate for patients undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is improved when doctors use advanced 3D/4D imaging to guide the placement of embryos to the point where the endometrium is most receptive to implantation, according to a study presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM).
Placing embryos in the optimal location within the uterus is a key factor determining the success of in-vitro fertilization. The study’s lead author, Robert Gergely, M.D., has identified a new embryo placement target as the point where the fallopian tubes would intersect if they were extended beyond their natural length.
This imaginary intersection, which has been dubbed the Maximal Implantation Potential (MIP) Point, is where embryos typically implant and develop in natural pregnancies. Precision in embryo placement has become especially critical in recent years given the trend to limit the number of embryos transferred during in-vitro fertilization to just a single embryo in order to reduce the likelihood of multiple births.
The study, titled “Maximal Implantation Potential (MIP) Point - Suggested Target for Optimal Embryo Placement Within the Uterine Cavity During Embryo Transfer” (ASRM: P-665), was led by Dr. Gergely, who serves as medical director of the 3D Sonography Center of Beverly Hills (Beverly Hills, Calif.), and was formerly acting director of obstetrics at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. more…

From: »News-Medical.Net«

(wz) A US firm’s controversial proposition to store stem cells from spare IVF embryos has angered UK scientists.
In theory, cells banked from one embryo could provide treatment for a sibling threatened by serious disease many decades later.
However, Lord Robert Winston said the scheme, unveiled at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference, preyed on parents’ fears.
One stem cell expert said it was “too early” to justify storing the embryos. Stem cells are the body’s “master cells”, capable of growing into a wide variety of different tissues, and many scientists believe that one day, they could be harnessed to fight diseases of old age such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
One source of these is the human embryo, and most IVF cycles produce more embryos than can be implanted back into a woman, leaving unwanted embryos which are normally frozen for later use or discarded.
However, the science of stem cells is still at a fledgling stage, and stem cells derived from an embryo have never been successfully used to treat or cure human disease. more…

From: »BBC News«

(sz) In a University of Tokyo laboratory, a pipette-wielding technician delicately positions 10 mouse eggs on a razor-thin microchip lined with a “bed” of cultured uterus tissue.
Next, the technician adds sperm cells, fertilizing the eggs. Three tiny tubes snake from the silicone device, and over the next 48 to 72 hours, a pulsing micro-pump washes the early embryos with rhythmic waves of a culture fluid that helps them grow, in an attempt to simulate what happens in the womb. Then, the embryos are removed, and the healthy ones are implanted into the actual wombs of mother mice.
Teruo Fujii and his colleagues believe their “womb-on-a-chip” is superior to growing embryos in the static environment of a Petri dish, the way in-vitro fertilization clinics now prepare embryos for implantation into a mother’s womb. Eventually, they hope it will lead to better outcomes for infertile women.
“This is a new way to culture embryos in an environment that is closer to what happens inside the body,” he said in an interview. Although results in mice so far are only slightly better than with the current method, Fujii dreams of building an automated device that takes in eggs and sperm at one end and delivers healthy human embryos out the other with near-assembly line results.
Others are pursuing even more futuristic goals. Cornell University scientists built an artificial womb from cultured layers of mouse uterine tissue in 2003. Although embryos implanted and began to grow, they didn’t survive, and while the studies continue, they have been placed on the back burner. more…

From: »The Boston Globe«

(sz) At Overlake Reproductive Health, passive 13.56 MHz RFID tags and interrogators track human sperm, eggs and embryos throughout the assisted-reproduction process.
Overlake Reproductive Health, located in Bellevue, Wash., has become the first reproductive-medicine center in the United States to deploy an RFID-based system for tracking human eggs, sperm and embryos. This system should help ensure that no identity mistakes are made during collection, storage and fertilization.
A female client can visit the clinic to be artificially inseminated by a partner’s sperm, or to have her egg fertilized in vitro (in a test tube) and then implanted in her uterus. For either procedure, the couple may worry that the sperm or egg might be accidentally switched with someone else’s, resulting in a baby that is not biologically theirs. Although such mistakes rarely happen, the experience can be traumatic for parents when they do occur, subjecting a clinic to lawsuits and negative publicity. more…

From: »The RFiD Journal«

(wz) This is a transcript from AM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 08:00 on ABC Local Radio.
TONY EASTLEY: It’s an extraordinary statistic, but in just about every primary school classroom in the country there is one IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) baby.
It is of course only an average statistic, but IVF babies now account for three per cent of the birth rate.
A new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows technology has come a long way.
Jane Cowan reports.

JANE COWAN: Since 2002, the Fertility Society of Australia has recommended single embryo transfer in women younger than 35 and never more than a two embryo transfer in any woman.
But this report shows for the first time there’s been a dramatic increase in the numbers of women and doctors heeding that advice.
Professor Michael Chapman is an infertility specialist at IVF Australia and clinical adviser to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s Perinatal Statistics Unit.
MICHAEL CHAPMAN: We believe that by putting two embryos back we maximise the chance of pregnancy.
But in fact, putting one embryo back reduces that chance only very, very slightly, maybe one percentage point. And so the benefits of not having twins far outweighs that, the very tiny drop in pregnancy rates. more…

From: »ABC Local Radio« (available also as audio-download)