Different patterns of orthostatic hypotension in older patients with unexplained falls or syncope: orthostatic hypotension patterns in older people.

Purpose: To evaluate different patterns of orthostatic hypotension (OH) and its relation to mortality in older patients with unexplained falls or syncope.

Methods: This is an observational cohort study in consecutive patients aged ≥ 65 years with unexplained falls or syncope at a Fall Syncope day clinic November 2011 until May 2016. OH is defined as a decrease in systolic blood pressure (BP) ≥ 20 mmHg and/or in diastolic BP ≥ 10 mmHg during standing test.

Vitrification of human blastocysts with the Hemi-Straw carrier: application of assisted hatching after thawing.

Background: The present study was undertaken to examine the usefulness of both vitrification and assisted hatching (AH) on blastocysts that originate from embryos showing different qualities during their cleavage stage.

Methods: A total of 281 blastocysts were vitrified (93 vitrification-warming cycles) in a mixture of ethylene glycol-dimethylsulphoxide-Ficoll and sucrose using the Hemi-Straw (HS) carrier system. After warming, AH using the partial dissection technique was performed in 36 cycles.

Births after vitrification at morula and blastocyst stages: effect of artificial reduction of the blastocoelic cavity before vitrification.

Background: In 1996, with the introduction of sequential media, we set up a programme of cryopreservation of supernumerary morulae (day 4) and blastocysts (day 5) using a vitrification procedure. Our results showed that the efficiency of the vitrification method was dependent on the stage of embryo development and was negatively correlated with the expansion of the blastocoele. We postulated that a large blastocoele might disturb cryopreservative potential due to ice crystal formation during the cooling step.

[Medically assisted reproduction with immature spermatozoa. Clinical examination and surgical technics].

The authors report their experience with the use of spermatids in TESE programs where mature spermatozoa could not be isolated from testicular biopsies. The details of the indications for spermatid insemination, the technicity of the procedure and the results are exposed.

Intracytoplasmic injection of spermatids retrieved from testicular tissue: influence of testicular pathology, type of selected spermatids and oocyte activation.

Spermatid microinjection into oocytes has proven to be a successful assisted reproduction procedure in the animal model and in the human species, since in the latter a few full-term pregnancies were actually obtained. Patients entering our spermatid injection study included those with a total absence of spermatozoa in the testicular tissue notwithstanding previous positive biopsies (n = 29): an obstructive problem (n = 3), secretory azoospermia (n = 26), and those with total arrest at the spermatogenesis level in previous explorative biopsies (n = 15). In the latter group, absence of spermatids was recorded in four cases.

[Andrologic/gynecologic microsurgery and fertilization in vitro: complementary approaches?].

The authors give their detailed results of andrological and gynecological microsurgical procedures and compare these to the cumulative results of their IVF work. They do defend the idea that to abandon microsurgery in favour of IVF and its last developments such as MESA & TESE is unreasonable and believe that every case demands a precise evaluation in which the gynecological situation and the age of the partner is mandatory.

Fertilizing ability of immotile spermatozoa after intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

Sometimes spermatozoa from ejaculate, epididymis or testis show a total absence of motility. For some patients, however, very few spermatozoa with very poor motility can be found after several hours of incubation (initially immotile spermatozoa). Other samples show no motility at all even after extended culture (totally immotile spermatozoa).

New therapeutic possibilities handling residual azoospermia.

Obviously, medical therapy of secretory azoospermia or microsurgical therapy of excretory azoospermia are not always successful. The unsolvable cases therefore can be grouped as residual azoospermias. Both the medical and microsurgical approaches are reviewed and their success rates analyzed.

Pregnancy obtained with human testicular spermatozoa in an in vitro fertilization program.

The fertilizing capacity of human testicular spermatozoa and the positive outcome of an in vitro fertilization program open a wide range of opportunities for men suffering from obstructive and inoperable azoospermia. In six cases, subzonal sperm injection or intracytoplasmic sperm injection techniques were applied to inject testicular spermatozoa into human oocytes. The fertilization rate after testicular sperm injection reached 45%.

Prevention of multiple pregnancies in an in vitro fertilization program.

Objective: To limit the high number of multiple pregnancies in an IVF program.

Setting: In Vitro Fertilization Laboratory, Fertility Department, Public Hospital.

Interventions: The number of embryos transferred was limited to two instead of three.

A monozygotic twin pregnancy after application of zona rubbing on a frozen-thawed blastocyst.

Assisted hatching techniques enhance the success rate of implantation of in-vitro fertilized human embryos. We report here the successful transfer of a frozen-thawed human blastocyst on which we applied a non-invasive zona rubbing technique (reduction of the thickness of the zona pellucida by gentle rubbing with a microneedle). The implantation in the uterus led to the delivery of healthy monozygotic twins.

Primary structure and subcellular localization of two fimbrial subunit-like proteins involved in the biosynthesis of K99 fibrillae.

Analysis of the nucleotide sequence of the distal part of the fan gene cluster encoding the proteins involved in the biosynthesis of the fibrillar adhesin, K99, revealed the presence of two structural genes, fanG and fanH. The amino acid sequence of the gene products (FanG and FanH) showed significant homology to the amino acid sequence of the fibrillar subunit protein (FanC). Introduction of a site-specific frameshift mutation in fanG or fanH resulted in a simultaneous decrease in fibrillae production and adhesive capacity.

Two novel genes, fanA and fanB, involved in the biogenesis of K99 fimbriae.

The nucleotide sequence of the region located transcriptionally upstream of the K99 fimbrial subunit gene (fanC) was determined. Several putative transcription signals and two open reading frames, designated fanA and fanB, became apparent. Frameshift mutations in fanA and fanB reduced K99 fimbriae expression 8-fold and 16-fold, respectively.

Within-subject variations of sperm parameters and their importance in an in vitro fertilization program.

Spermiograms of 150 males were assessed, in view of studying them before an in vitro fertilization attempt. Within subject variations were determined with regard to sperm count and spermatozoal motility pattern. Ultimately these results were compared to the seminological parameters studied at the time of the in vitro-fertilization attempt.

Variation, transcription and circular RNAs of the mitochondrial gene for subunit I of cytochrome c oxidase.

The gene for subunit I of cytochrome c oxidase, contained within the OX13 region of yeast mitochondrial DNA, is split and shows a remarkable variation in structure, which is strain-dependent. The most complex form so far characterized is that of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain KL14-4A, in which nine or possibly ten exons are separated by eight to nine introns. At least four of these are facultative, two being absent from S.

Mutations affecting RNA splicing and the interaction of gene expression of the yeast mitochondrial loci cob and oxi-3.

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains KL14-4A and 777-3A, four intervening sequences of 1900 (l alpha beta), 1400 (l beta gamma), 1300 (l gamma delta) and 650 bp (l delta epsilon) separate the five coding sequences (alpha-epsilon) of the structural gene (cob) for cytochrome b. Its major transcript is an 18S RNA (2200 nucleotides) which is likely to be the functional mRNA. The lengths of a series of larger transcripts and their hybridization with probes specific for different intervening sequences are consistent with their being intermediates in a splicing process which generates 18S RNA from a giant primary transcript (greater than or equal to 7.