TERRA: A Novel Biomarker of Embryo Quality and Art Outcome.

Telomeres are considered to be an internal biological clock, and their progressive shortening has been associated with the risk of age-related diseases and reproductive alterations. Over recent years, an increasing number of studies have focused on the association between telomere length and fertility, identifying sperm telomere length (STL) as a novel biomarker of male fertility. Although typically considered to be repeated DNA sequences, telomeres have recently been shown to also include a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) known as TERRA (telomeric repeat-containing RNAs).

The euploid blastocysts obtained after luteal phase stimulation show the same clinical, obstetric and perinatal outcomes as follicular phase stimulation-derived ones: a multicenter study.

Study Question: Are the reproductive outcomes (clinical, obstetric and perinatal) different between follicular phase stimulation (FPS)- and luteal phase stimulation (LPS)-derived euploid blastocysts?

Summary Answer: No difference was observed between FPS- and LPS-derived euploid blastocysts after vitrified-warmed single embryo transfer (SET).

What Is Known Already: Technical improvements in IVF allow the implementation non-conventional controlled ovarian stimulation (COS) protocols for oncologic and poor prognosis patients. One of these protocols begins LPS 5 days after FPS is ended (DuoStim).

Definition of a clinical strategy to enhance the efficacy, efficiency and safety of egg donation cycles with imported vitrified oocytes.

Study Question: Which is the most suitable clinical strategy in egg donation IVF cycles conducted with imported donated vitrified oocytes?

Summary Answer: The importation, and allocation, of at least eight vitrified eggs per couple during an egg donation cycle is associated with a high cumulative live birth delivery rate per cycle, as well as the confident adoption of a single blastocyst transfer strategy to minimize the risk of multiple pregnancies.

What Is Known Already: IVF using donor eggs is commonly used worldwide to treat women who are unable to conceive with their own oocytes. In 2014, the Constitutional Court (n.

Definition and validation of a custom protocol to detect miRNAs in the spent media after blastocyst culture: searching for biomarkers of implantation.

Study Question: Can miRNAs be reliably detected in the spent blastocyst media (SBM) after IVF as putative biomarkers of the implantation potential of euploid embryos?

Summary Answer: Adjustment of the data for blastocyst quality and the day of full-expansion hinders the predictive power of a fast, inexpensive, reproducible and user-friendly protocol based on the detection of 10 selected miRNAs from SBM.

What Is Known Already: Euploidy represents so far the strongest predictor of blastocyst competence. Nevertheless, ~50% of the euploid blastocysts fail to implant.

Inconclusive chromosomal assessment after blastocyst biopsy: prevalence, causative factors and outcomes after re-biopsy and re-vitrification. A multicenter experience.

Study Question: Can a second round of biopsy, vitrification and chromosomal testing provide a valid diagnosis where the first attempt fails?

Summary Answer: The risk of inconclusive chromosomal-assessment after trophectoderm biopsy was 2.5% but a further biopsy and vitrification-warming appeared not to impair the competence of euploid blastocysts.

What Is Known Already: The increasing implementation of multicell trophectoderm biopsy has significantly reduced the risk of inconclusive diagnosis after preimplantation-genetic-testing (PGT).

Double Stimulation in the Same Ovarian Cycle (DuoStim) to Maximize the Number of Oocytes Retrieved From Poor Prognosis Patients: A Multicenter Experience and SWOT Analysis.

A panel of experts known as the POSEIDON group has recently redefined the spectrum of poor responder patients and introduced the concept of suboptimal response. Since an ideal management for these patients is still missing, they highlighted the importance of tailoring the ovarian stimulation based on the chance of each woman to obtain an euploid blastocyst. Interestingly, a novel pattern of follicle recruitment has been defined: multiple waves may arise during a single ovarian cycle.

Effect of the male factor on the clinical outcome of intracytoplasmic sperm injection combined with preimplantation aneuploidy testing: observational longitudinal cohort study of 1,219 consecutive cycles.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of the male factor on the outcomes of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) cycles combined with preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidies (PGT-A).

Design: Observational longitudinal cohort study.

Setting: Private in vitro fertilization (IVF) center.

Consistent and reproducible outcomes of blastocyst biopsy and aneuploidy screening across different biopsy practitioners: a multicentre study involving 2586 embryo biopsies.

Study Question: Is blastocyst biopsy and quantitative real-time PCR based comprehensive chromosome screening a consistent and reproducible approach across different biopsy practitioners?

Summary Answer: The blastocyst biopsy approach provides highly consistent and reproducible laboratory and clinical outcomes across multiple practitioners from different IVF centres when all of the embryologists received identical training and use similar equipment.

What Is Known Already: Recently there has been a trend towards trophectoderm (TE) biopsy in preimplantation genetic screening (PGS)/preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) programmes. However, there is still a lack of knowledge about the reproducibility that can be obtained from multiple biopsy practitioners in different IVF centres in relation also to blastocysts of different morphology.

Epigenetic regulatory mechanisms during preimplantation embryo development.

Within the past few years, developmental scientists have switched their attention from the study of DNA sequencing to the epigenetic state of the genome. Studying epigenetics could present the key to understanding gene expression changes without altering the basic structure of DNA. For example, the blastocyst, trophectoderm, and inner cell mass grow within the same environment, having the same genome, but differentiate differently.