The Extracellular Vesicle-Macrophage Regulatory Axis: A Novel Pathogenesis for Endometriosis.

Endometriosis (EMs) is a common disease among women whose pathogenesis is still unclear, although there are various hypotheses. Recent studies have considered macrophages the key part of the immune system in developing EMs, inducing inflammation, the growth and invasion of the ectopic endometrium, and angiogenesis. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) as novel intercellular vesicle traffic, can be secreted by many kinds of cells, including macrophages.

Maternal and neonatal morbidity: repeat Cesarean versus a trial of labour after previous Cesarean delivery.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to perform a meta-analysis comparing the rates of uterine rupture, and other maternal and neonatal complications, between women who undergo a trial of labour (TOL) after a prior Cesarean delivery and those to undergo elective repeat Cesarean delivery (ERCD).

Source: Medline, Cochrane, EMBASE and Google Scholar were searched until May 6, 2015 using the keywords/phrases: trial of labour, Cesarean section, elective, repeat, pregnancy and vaginal birth. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs), two-arm prospective studies, one-arm studies and retrospective studies were included.

Micromanipulation of cryopreserved embryos and cryopreservation of micromanipulated embryos in PGD.

The possibility to employ cryopreservation in Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) should enlarge the opportunities for research and clinical activity. For these purposes, we tried three kinds of approaches on human abnormal embryos: (1) cryopreservation of biopsied embryos; (2) biopsy of thawed embryos; and (3) biopsy of embryos derived from thawed oocytes. Our preliminary results show that: (1) biopsy of thawed embryos is feasible and FISH analysis is possible on both survived and lysed cells; (2) Optimization of freezing/thawing procedures are necessary to obtain better survival rate after thawing of biopsied embryos; (3) Biopsy and FISH are feasible on embryos derived from thawed oocytes and they could be a good way to study the chromosomal arrangement of these poorly investigated embryos.

Technical aspects of oocyte cryopreservation.

Since the successful development in the mouse, the oocyte cryopreservation has been applied with varying success to a number of different species including the human. The recently reported successes in terms of pregnancies obtained by human oocyte cryopreservation are encouraging. Several studies typically reported different rates of survival (20-80%), fertilization (30-60%) and cleavage (32-100%).