Chromosomal abnormalities in oocyte donor candidates: a French survey of over 8,200 karyotypes.

Objective: To study karyotypes of >8,200 oocyte donor candidates in nulliparous or multiparous women compared with a reference population.

Design: A retrospective observational multicentric study.

Setting: University Hospital Centers.

PGT and deferred embryo transfer: Is blastocyst biopsy more effective than cleaved embryo biopsy?

Objective: Blastocyst biopsy has recently been implemented in our laboratory for PGT with a "freeze all" indication. The aim of this study is to compare PGT results between embryos biopsied at the cleaved and embryos biopsied at the blastocyst stage.

Study Design: This is a retrospective cohort study conducted from January 2017 to December 2022 in France.

Higher risk of pre-eclampsia and other vascular disorders with artificial cycle for frozen-thawed embryo transfer compared to ovulatory cycle or to fresh embryo transfer following fertilization.

Background: Risks of maternal morbidity are known to be reduced in pregnancies resulting from frozen embryo transfer (FET) compared to fresh-embryo transfer (-ET), except for the risk of pre-eclampsia, reported to be higher in FET pregnancies compared to -ET or natural conception. Few studies have compared the risk of maternal vascular morbidities according to endometrial preparation for FET, either with ovulatory cycle (OC-FET) or artificial cycle (AC-FET). Furthermore, maternal pre-eclampsia could be associated with subsequent vascular disorders in the offspring.

Preimplantation genetic testing for mitochondrial DNA mutation: ovarian response to stimulation, outcomes and follow-up.

Research Question: How do carriers of pathogenic mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) respond to ovarian stimulation?

Design: A single-centre, retrospective study conducted between January 2006 and July 2021 in France. Ovarian reserve markers and ovarian stimulation cycle outcomes were compared for couples undergoing preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) for maternally inherited mtDNA disease (n = 18) (mtDNA-PGT group) with a matched-control group of patients undergoing PGT for male indications (n = 96). The PGT outcomes for the mtDNA-PGT group and the follow-up of these patients in case of unsuccessful PGT was also reported.

Fetal growth disorders following medically assisted reproduction: due to maternal context or techniques? A national French cohort study.

Research Question: What part do maternal context and medically assisted reproduction (MAR) techniques play in the risk of fetal growth disorders?

Design: This retrospective nationwide cohort study uses data available in the French National Health System database and focuses on the period from 2013 to 2017. Fetal growth disorders were divided into four groups according to the origin of pregnancy: fresh embryo transfer (n = 45,201), frozen embryo transfer (FET, n = 18,845), intrauterine insemination (IUI, n = 20,179) and natural conceptions (n = 3,412,868). Fetal growth disorders were defined from the percentiles of the weight distribution according to gestational age and sex: small and large for gestational age (SGA and LGA) if <10th and >90th percentiles, respectively.

Ovarian tissue cryopreservation can be combined simultaneously with oocyte retrieval after controlled ovarian hyperstimulation.

Study Question: Can ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) be performed after controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH)?

Summary Answer: Unilateral oophorectomy after transvaginal oocyte retrieval is feasible on stimulated ovaries during one surgical step.

What Is Known Already: In the fertility preservation (FP) field, the timeframe between patient referral and start of curative treatment is limited. Combining oocyte pick-up with ovarian tissue (OT) extraction has been reported to improve FP but COH applied before OT extraction is not currently recommended.

Second biopsy for embryos with inconclusive results after preimplantation genetic testing: Impact on pregnancy outcomes.

In this study, we aimed to evaluate the pregnancy outcomes for embryos biopsied twice at cleavage and blastocyst stage for preimplantation genetic testing (PGT). This retrospective monocentric study, conducted between January 2016 and March 2021, described all PGT results on one hand and the PGT results for undiagnosed embryos submitted to a second biopsy on the other hand. Among the 5865 embryos biopsied during the study period, 510 embryos were genetic undiagnosed after the first embryo biopsy at cleavage stage (8.

Obstetrical outcomes and maternal morbidities associated with COVID-19 in pregnant women in France: A national retrospective cohort study.

Background: To the best of our knowledge, no study has exhaustively evaluated the association between maternal morbidities and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) during the first wave of the pandemic in pregnant women. We investigated, in natural conceptions and assisted reproductive technique (ART) pregnancies, whether maternal morbidities were more frequent in pregnant women with COVID-19 diagnosis compared to pregnant women without COVID-19 diagnosis during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods And Findings: We conducted a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data in a national cohort of all hospitalizations for births ≥22 weeks of gestation in France from January to June 2020 using the French national hospitalization database (PMSI).

Live birth rate after use of cryopreserved oocytes or embryos at the time of cancer diagnosis in female survivors: a retrospective study of ten years of experience.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of frozen oocytes or embryos cryopreserved after controlled ovarian stimulation (COS) or in vitro maturation (IVM) for female cancer patients who underwent a fertility preservation (FP) prior to gonadotoxic therapy.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study from 2009 to December 2017 was conducted. Among the 667 female cancer patients who underwent oocytes or embryos cryopreservation for FP, 40 (6%) have returned to the fertility clinic between 2011 and 2019 to use their frozen material after being cured.

First follow-up of art pregnancies in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Objective: The aims of this study were to follow up the monitoring, health and anxiety from women who became pregnant after an embryo transfer or a intrauterine insemination during the COVID-19 epidemic in France STUDY DESIGN: This is a single centre, retrospective study from December 2019 to March 2020 based on a phone call interview using a specific questionnaire sheet specially developed for this study. Questionnaires from 104 pregnant women were completed and descriptive data are then analyzed.

Results: Women with ongoing pregnancies (n = 88) did not change their physician visits.

Does the prognosis after PGT for structural rearrangement differ between female and male translocation carriers?

Research Question: Chromosomal translocations are known genetic causes of premature ovarian insufficiency syndrome. Are certain translocations associated with decreased capacity of small antral follicles to respond to exogenous FSH? Does the prognosis after preimplantation genetic testing for structural rearrangements differ in couples with female or male translocation carriers and according to the type of translocation?

Design: A single-centre, retrospective, observational study covering a 10-year period. One hundred and thirty-nine females carrying a translocation were compared with 192 partners of male translocation carriers.

CTG Expansion in the DMPK Gene: Semen Quality Assessment and Outcome of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis.

Context: Myotonic dystrophy (DM) is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized mainly by myotonia but also by primary hypogonadism. No study has reported on fertility management of patients affected by DM type 1 (DM1).

Objective: This study investigates the impact of CTG repeats in the DMPK gene on semen quality and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) outcome.

Chromosomal translocations and semen quality: A study on 144 male translocation carriers.

Research Question: Chromosomal translocations are known genetic causes of male infertility. Are certain translocations or chromosomal regions more directly associated with sperm defects? Is there a threshold of sperm impairment that can be relevant for detection of translocations?

Design: This is a monocentric retrospective observational study covering a 10-year period. Eighty-one patients carrying a reciprocal translocation (RCT) and 63 carrying a Robertsonian translocation (ROBT) were compared with 105 fertile patients.

Shortening gametes co-incubation time improves live birth rate for couples with a history of fragmented embryos.

Unlabelled: Short gamete co-incubation (SGCO) consists in decreasing the duration of contact between oocytes and sperm from the standard overnight insemination (SOI) toward 2 hours. However, the effectiveness of this technique to improve in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET) outcomes remains controversial. Our study was designed to evaluate the efficiency of SGCO in a poor prognosis population with a history of fragmented embryos defined by the presence of at least 50% of the embryos with more than 25% of cytoplasmic fragments.

Is it acceptable to destroy or include human embryos before day 5 in research programmes?

Day-3 poor-quality embryos (PQE) from IVF-embryo transfer cycles are usually destroyed or are included in research programmes. Knowing that these embryos have the ability to evolve to the blastocyst stage and yield embryonic stem cell lines, this study postulated that they could also give rise to live births. This is a prospective study including 186 IVF-embryo transfer candidates who had obtained at least one supernumerary PQE on day 3.

[Embryo vitrification: French clinical practice analysis for BLEFCO].

Frozen thawed embryo transfer is currently an important part of present-day assisted reproductive technology (ART) aiming at increasing the clinical pregnancy rate per oocyte retrieval. Although slow freezing method has been the reference during 2 decades, the recent years witnessed an expansion of ultrarapid cryopreservation method named vitrification. Recently in France, vitrification has been authorized for cryopreserving human embryos.

Mutation dependance of the mitochondrial DNA copy number in the first stages of human embryogenesis.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) content is thought to remain stable over the preimplantation period of human embryogenesis that is, therefore, suggested to be entirely dependent on ooplasm mtDNA capital. We have explored the impact of two disease-causing mutations [m.3243A>G myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like syndrome (MELAS) and m.

Loss of LH-induced down-regulation of anti-Müllerian hormone receptor expression may contribute to anovulation in women with polycystic ovary syndrome.

Study Question: Are anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and AMH type II receptor (AMHR-II) mRNAs similarly regulated by gonadotrophins in lutein granulosa cells (GCs) from control, normo-ovulatory and oligo/anovulatory women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)?

Summary Answer: AMH mRNA expression was induced by LH only in lutein GC of oligo/anovulatory PCOS women; down-regulation of AMHR-II, induced by LH in control and normo-ovulatory PCOS women, was absent in oligo/anovulatory women.

What Is Known Already: It was suggested that AMH could be responsible for the blockade of follicles at the small antral stage in PCOS women. In keeping with this hypothesis, both AMH and AMHR-II are overexpressed in lutein GCs from oligo/anovulatory PCOS women.

New trends in female fertility preservation: in vitro maturation of oocytes.

As antineoplastic treatments have become more successful, an increasing number of women with cancer survive to endure the long-term consequences of chemotherapy. One of the most important of these consequences in young females is premature ovarian failure and infertility. Owing to increasing survival rates, many of these young women are seeking methods to preserve their fertility.