The emotions, concerns and reactions of sperm donor candidates to their rejection by a sperm bank.

Purpose: To explore the emotions, concerns and reactions of sperm donor candidates to their rejection by the sperm bank.

Methods: An online questionnaire was administered at Cryos International in the USA and Denmark to sperm donor candidates who had received notification that they were ineligible to donate.

Results: A total of 101 rejected donor candidates completed the questionnaire.

FERTILITY CARE IN LOW AND MIDDLE INCOME COUNTRIES: Implementing fertility care: insights from a participatory workshop in The Gambia.

Introduction: The Gambia, West Africa, has made recent progress on infertility, a component of sexual and reproductive health that is lagging behind others. Since 2016, there is favourable policy environment stemming from infertility research and partnership building with national stakeholders and local civil society organisations focussing on infertility. Here, we report outcomes from a participatory workshop on infertility policy implementation in The Gambia and provide insights on setting national priorities for fertility care in resource-limited settings.

Recent decline in sperm motility among donor candidates at a sperm bank in Denmark.

Study Question: Has there been variation in semen quality among men applying to be sperm donors (i.e. donor candidates) in Denmark in recent years (2017-2022)?

Summary Answer: The motile sperm concentration and total motile sperm count (TMSC) in ejaculates-both measures of sperm quality-declined by as much as 22% from 2019 to 2022.

Policy action points and approaches to promote fertility care in The Gambia: Findings from a mixed-methods study.

Introduction: In the Global South, (in)fertility care is scarcely recognized as a priority, yet the government of The Gambia has recently included it as one of the key priorities in its reproductive health strategic plan. This inclusion appears to be the result of years of engagement between policy actors, academic researchers, and activists in the field of reproductive health and specifically of infertility. However, the operationalization of the strategic plan may be hampered by multiple factors.

Current global status of male reproductive health.

Background: The widespread interest in male reproductive health (MRH), fueled by emerging evidence, such as the global decline in sperm counts, has intensified concerns about the status of MRH. Consequently, there is a pressing requirement for a strategic, systematic approach to identifying critical questions, collecting pertinent information, and utilizing these data to develop evidence-based strategies. The methods for addressing these questions and the pathways toward their answers will inevitably vary based on the variations in cultural, geopolitical, and health-related contexts.

'It's about time': policymakers' and health practitioners' perspectives on implementing fertility care in the Gambian health system.

Background: Infertility is a major health issue worldwide, yet very few examples of interventions addressing infertility in the Global South have been documented to date. In The Gambia, West Africa, infertility is recognised as a burden and the health authorities have included it in several health policies and the new National Reproductive Health Strategy however, a detailed operationalisation plan for fertility care has not yet been established. Here, we aim to understand and document the factors that influence the implementation of fertility care in The Gambia.

PREDICT-GTN 2: Two-factor streamlined models match FIGO performance in gestational trophoblastic neoplasia.

Objective: The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) scoring system uses the sum of eight risk-factors to predict single-agent chemotherapy resistance in Gestational Trophoblastic Neoplasia (GTN). To improve ease of use, this study aimed to generate: (i) streamlined models that match FIGO performance and; (ii) visual-decision aids (nomograms) for guiding management.

Methods: Using training (n = 4191) and validation datasets (n = 144) of GTN patients from two UK specialist centres, logistic regression analysis generated two-factor models for cross-validation and exploration.

The effect of an educational animation on knowledge of testicular health and fertility of adolescents.

Study Question: Does the provision of an educational animation, developed with young people, about testicular health and fertility impact the knowledge of these topics among adolescents?

Summary Answer: The development and provision of education on testicular health and fertility were welcomed by adolescents and associated with a significant increase in knowledge.

What Is Known Already: Young people may know less than they should about testicular health and male fertility topics. Lack of knowledge can have implications for health including late medical help-seeking for signs and symptoms of scrotal disorders, such as torsion, for which late presentation frequently results in testicular damage.

Patient and professional perspectives about using in vitro fertilisation add-ons in the UK and Australia: a qualitative study.

Objectives: In vitro fertilisation (IVF) add-ons are additional procedures offered alongside an IVF cycle with the aim of improving live birth rates. They are controversial because of the paucity of evidence to support their efficacy and safety, alongside the additional financial cost they often pose to patients. Despite this, they are popular.

Accessing publicly funded donor insemination treatment in the UK: is funding information available on fertility clinic websites?

We sought to find out if information about public funding for regulated donor insemination (DI) was available on UK fertility clinic websites, and if so, what information was provided for same-sex couples and single women; and if the available information was easily readable. The 'Choose a fertility clinic' pages of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) website were used to identify all licensed fertility clinics in the UK, and any available text on public funding for DI treatment was extracted. The Flesch reading ease scores were calculated to determine the readability of the extracted text.

Fertility preservation and realignment in transgender women.

Medical care for transgender people is multi-faceted and attention to individual reproductive aspirations and planning are an essential, yet often overlooked aspect of care. Given the impact of hormonal therapy and other gender affirmation procedures on reproductive function, extensive counselling and consideration of fertility preservation is recommended prior to their commencement. This review article explores the reproductive aspirations of transgender women and considers the current disparity between stated desires regarding utilisation of fertility preservation services.

An analysis of the outcome of 11 712 men applying to be sperm donors in Denmark and the USA.

Study Question: Is the outcome of donor recruitment influenced by the country in which recruitment took place or the initial identity (ID)-release choice of applicants?

Summary Answer: More applicants are accepted as donors in Denmark than in the USA and those who choose ID release are more frequently accepted than those who do not.

What Is Known Already: The successful recruitment of sperm donors is essential to provide a range of medically assisted reproduction (MAR) procedures, which rely upon donor sperm. However, while much has been written about the medical screening and assessment of sperm donors from a safety perspective, relatively little has been written about the process of recruiting donors and how it works in practice.

PREDICT-GTN 1: Can we improve the FIGO scoring system in gestational trophoblastic neoplasia?

Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) patients are treated according to the eight-variable International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) scoring system, that aims to predict first-line single-agent chemotherapy resistance. FIGO is imperfect with one-third of low-risk patients developing disease resistance to first-line single-agent chemotherapy. We aimed to generate simplified models that improve upon FIGO.

Availability of services for the diagnosis and treatment of infertility in The Gambia`s public and private health facilities: a cross-sectional survey.

Background: Infertility is a long-standing reproductive health issue, which affects both men and women worldwide and it is especially problematic in the Global South. In sub-Saharan Africa, understanding the current availability of diagnostic and treatment services for infertility is important because this could guide health systems to improve access to fertility care for all. Yet, few studies have explicitly started from a health system perspective to grasp the availability and integration of infertility services in sub-Saharan Africa.

MAIA, Fc receptor-like 3, supersedes JUNO as IZUMO1 receptor during human fertilization.

Gamete fusion is a critical event of mammalian fertilization. A random one-bead one-compound combinatorial peptide library represented synthetic human egg mimics and identified a previously unidentified ligand as Fc receptor-like 3, named MAIA after the mythological goddess intertwined with JUNO. This immunoglobulin super family receptor was expressed on human and played a major role during sperm-egg adhesion and fusion.

NMR spectroscopy of live human asthenozoospermic and normozoospermic sperm metabolism.

Unlabelled: Sperm motility varies between ejaculates from different men and from individual men. We studied normozoospermic and asthenozoospermic ejaculates after density-gradient centrifugation washing (DCG, 80/40%) and compared high- (80%) and low (40%)-motility sperm populations within the same sample. Our objective was to identify differences in endogenous metabolomes and energy metabolism in relation to sperm motility.

Outcome reporting across randomized controlled trials evaluating potential treatments for male infertility: a systematic review.

Study Question: What are the primary outcomes and outcome measures used in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating potential treatments for male infertility in the last 10 years?

Summary Answer: Outcome reporting across male infertility trials is heterogeneous with numerous definitions and measures used to define similar outcomes.

What Is Known Already: No core outcome set for male infertility trials has been developed. Male infertility trials are unique in that they have potentially three participants, a man, a female partner and their offspring and this will likely lead to significant variation in outcome reporting in randomized trials.