SARS-CoV-2 infection reduces quality of sperm parameters: prospective one year follow-up study in 93 patients.

Background: Short- and long-term implications of SARS-CoV-2 on the quality of the sperm and the results of this on fertility remain largely unknown due to lack of longitudinal studies. In this longitudinal observational cohort study, we aimed to analyse the differential effect and the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on different semen quality parameters.

Methods: Sperm quality was assessed using the World Health Organization criteria, DNA damage to sperm cells by quantifying the DNA fragmentation index (DFI) and the high-density stainability (HDS), IgA- and IgG-anti-sperm antibodies (ASA) were assessed with light microscopy.

Sperm quality and absence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in semen after COVID-19 infection: a prospective, observational study and validation of the SpermCOVID test.

Objective: To study the contagiousness of sperm and its influence on fertility after recovery from COVID-19 infection.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: University medical center.

Organisation and quality monitoring for point-of-care testing (POCT) in Belgium: proposal for an expansion of the legal framework for POCT into primary health care.

Background: There is a trend towards decentralisation of laboratory tests by means of Point-of-Care testing (POCT). Within hospitals, Belgian law requires a POCT policy, coordinated by the clinical laboratory. There is however no legal framework for POCT performed outside the hospital: no reimbursement, no compulsory quality monitoring and no limits nor control on the prices charged to the patient.

Treatment Attitudes for Belgian Women With Persistent Trichomonas vaginalis Infection in the VlaResT Study.

Background: Because of its increasing prevalence worldwide, its sexual transmissibility and its facilitation of human immunodeficiency virus transmission, Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) infection constitutes an important public health concern.

The Aim Of The Study: While searching for possible resistant TV cases, adequacy of management of TV-infected women was assessed.

Methods: Cervical cytology between July 2007 and July 2014 was tested with TV polymerase chain reaction, and 304 women expressed repeatedly positive results, 718 in total.

Linear viral load increase of a single HPV-type in women with multiple HPV infections predicts progression to cervical cancer.

Persistent high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is strongly associated with development of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia or cancer (CIN3+). In single type infections, serial type-specific viral-load measurements predict the natural history of the infection. In infections with multiple HPV-types, the individual type-specific viral-load profile could distinguish progressing HPV-infections from regressing infections.

Serial type-specific human papillomavirus (HPV) load measurement allows differentiation between regressing cervical lesions and serial virion productive transient infections.

Persistent high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is strongly associated with the development of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) or cancer. Not all persistent infections lead to cancer. Viral load measured at a single time-point is a poor predictor of the natural history of HPV infections.