Survey on ART and IUI: legislation, regulation, funding, and registries in European countries-an update.

Study Question: How are ART and IUI regulated, funded, and registered in European countries, and how has the situation changed since 2018?

Summary Answer: Of the 43 countries performing ART and IUI in Europe, and participating in the survey, specific legislation exists in only 39 countries, public funding varies across and sometimes within countries (and is lacking or minimal in four countries), and national registries are in place in 33 countries; only a small number of changes were identified, most of them in the direction of improving accessibility, through increased public financial support and/or opening access to additional subgroups.

What Is Known Already: The annual reports of the European IVF-Monitoring Consortium (EIM) clearly show the existence of different approaches across Europe regarding accessibility to and efficacy of ART and IUI treatments. In a previous survey, some coherent information was gathered about how those techniques were regulated, funded, and registered in European countries, showing that diversity is the paradigm in this medical field.

ART in Europe, 2017: results generated from European registries by ESHRE.

Study Question: What are the data on ART and IUI cycles, and fertility preservation (FP) interventions reported in 2017 as compared to previous years, as well as the main trends over the years?

Summary Answer: The 21st ESHRE report on ART and IUI shows the continual increase in reported treatment cycle numbers in Europe, with a decrease in the proportion of transfers with more than one embryo causing an additional slight reduction of multiple delivery rates (DR) as well as higher pregnancy rates (PR) and DR after frozen embryo replacement (FER) compared to fresh IVF and ICSI cycles, while the number of IUI cycles increased and their outcomes remained stable.

What Is Known Already: Since 1997, ART aggregated data generated by national registries, clinics or professional societies have been gathered and analyzed by the European IVF-monitoring Consortium (EIM) and communicated in a total of 20 manuscripts published in and .

Study Design Size Duration: Data on European medically assisted reproduction (MAR) are collected by EIM for ESHRE on a yearly basis.

20 years of the European IVF-monitoring Consortium registry: what have we learned? A comparison with registries from two other regions.

Study Question: How has the performance of the European regional register of the European IVF-monitoring Consortium (EIM)/European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) evolved from 1997 to 2016, as compared to the register of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the USA and the Australia and New Zealand Assisted Reproduction Database (ANZARD)?

Summary Answer: It was found that coherent and analogous changes are recorded in the three regional registers over time, with a different intensity and pace, that new technologies are taken up with considerable delay and that incidental complications and adverse events are only recorded sporadically.

What Is Known Already: European data on ART have been collected since 1997 by EIM. Data collection on ART in Europe is particularly difficult due to its fragmented political and legal landscape.

ART in Europe, 2016: results generated from European registries by ESHRE.

Study Question: What are the reported data on cycles in ART, IUI and fertility preservation (FP) interventions in 2016 as compared to previous years, as well as the main trends over the years?

Summary Answer: The 20th ESHRE report on ART and IUI shows a progressive increase in reported treatment cycle numbers in Europe, with a decrease in the number of transfers with more than one embryo causing a reduction of multiple delivery rates (DR), as well as higher pregnancy rates and DR after frozen embryo replacement (FER) compared to fresh IVF and ICSI cycles, while the outcomes for IUI cycles remained stable.

What Is Known Already: Since 1997, ART aggregated data generated by national registries, clinics or professional societies have been collected, analysed by the European IVF-monitoring Consortium (EIM) and reported in 19 manuscripts published in and .

Study Design Size Duration: Yearly collection of European medically assisted reproduction (MAR) data by EIM for ESHRE.

Survey on ART and IUI: legislation, regulation, funding and registries in European countries: The European IVF-monitoring Consortium (EIM) for the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE).

Study Question: How are ART and IUI regulated, funded and registered in European countries?

Summary Answer: Of the 43 countries performing ART and IUI in Europe, and participating in the survey, specific legislation exists in only 39 countries, public funding (also available in the 39 countries) varies across and sometimes within countries and national registries are in place in 31 countries.

What Is Known Already: Some information devoted to particular aspects of accessibility to ART and IUI is available, but most is fragmentary or out-dated. Annual reports from the European IVF-Monitoring (EIM) Consortium for ESHRE clearly mirror different approaches in European countries regarding accessibility to and efficacy of those techniques.

ART in Europe, 2014: results generated from European registries by ESHRE: The European IVF-monitoring Consortium (EIM) for the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE).

Study Question: What are the European trends and developments in ART and IUI in 2014 as compared to previous years?

Summary Answer: The 18th ESHRE report on ART shows a continuing expansion of both treatment numbers in Europe and more variability in treatment modalities resulting in a rising contribution to the birth rates in most participating countries.

What Is Known Already: Since 1997, ART data generated by national registries have been collected, analysed by the European IVF-monitoring (EIM) Consortium and reported in 17 manuscripts published in Human Reproduction.

Study Design, Size, Duration: Continuous collection of European data by the EIM for ESHRE.

Data collection systems in ART must follow the pace of change in clinical practice.

In assisted reproductive technology (ART), quality control necessitates the collection of outcome data and occurring complications. Traditional quality assurance is based on data derived from single ART centres and more recently from national registries, both recording outcome parameters during well-defined observation periods. Nowadays, ART is moving towards much more diverse approaches, with sequential activities including short- or long-term freezing of gametes, gonadal tissues and embryos, and cross-border reproductive care.

Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 2011: results generated from European registers by ESHRE.

Study Question: The 15th European IVF-monitoring (EIM) report presents the results of treatments involving assisted reproductive technology (ART) initiated in Europe during 2011: are there any changes in the trends compared with previous years?

Summary Answer: Despite some fluctuations in the number of countries reporting data, while the overall number of ART cycles has continued to increase year by year, the pregnancy rates in 2011 decreased slightly to those reported in 2010, and the number of transfers with multiple embryos (3+) and the multiple delivery rates declined.

What Is Known Already: Since 1997, ART data in Europe have been collected and reported in 14 manuscripts, published in Human Reproduction.

Study Design, Size, Duration: Retrospective data collection of European ART data by the EIM Consortium for the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE); cycles started between 1 January and 31 December 2011 are collected on a yearly basis.

Species-specific differences in follicular antral sizes result from diffusion-based limitations on the thickness of the granulosa cell layer.

The size of mature oocytes is similar across mammalian species, yet the size of ovarian follicles increases with species size, with some ovarian follicles reaching diameters>1000-fold the size of the enclosed oocyte. Here we show that the different follicular sizes can be explained with diffusion-based limitations on the thickness of the hormone-secreting granulosa layer. By analysing published data on human follicular growth and granulosa cell expansion during follicular maturation we find that the 4-fold increase of the antral follicle diameter is entirely driven by an increase in the follicular fluid volume, while the thickness of the surrounding granulosa layer remains constant at ∼45±10 µm.

Decreased expression of FGFR1, SOS1, RAF1 genes in cryptorchidism.

Background: In recent years, several genes were found to be involved in the process of epididymo-testicular descent, the most frequently cited ones include INSL3, HOXA10, GNRHR, and KAL1. In this study, we analyzed the differences in gene expression profiles between cryptorchid and descended testes. In particular, we analyzed expression of all recently published genes known to be associated with undescended testis.

[New options in prenatal and preimplantation diagnosis of genetic disorders].

During recent years the progress with the most important practical impact in prenatal diagnosis has been the implementation of first trimester risk screening for common aneuploidies leading to a much improved identification of pregnancies at risk. Molecular methods for a rapid, cost-effective, but selective aneuploidy diagnosis such as interphase FISH or QF-PCR have been around for years, do have their specific indications, but will unlikely replace conventional cytogenetic tools in routine diagnosis. They apparently do also play a role as marketing instruments in the competition among cytogenetic laboratories.

Ten years of Swiss National IVF Register FIVNAT-CH. Are we making progress?

In 2001, analysis of Swiss data collected since 1993 included 1001 treatment cycles with IVF, 2217 treatment cycles with intracytoplasmic sperm injection and 2160 treatment cycles with frozen-thawed embryos or zygotes. IVF cycle number has remained constant over the past 10 years, now representing only 18% of the total. ICSI treatment cycles have plateaued since 2001.

Menstrual cycle symptoms are associated with changes in low-grade inflammation.

Background: A close link between mood, low-grade inflammation and obesity has been demonstrated even in healthy subjects. We investigated the relationship between changes in physical and psychological symptoms and inflammatory markers during the menstrual cycle both in normal weight and in overweight women.

Materials And Methods: Eight healthy normal weight (body mass index 21.