BACKGROUND Determination of oocyte fertilization and embryo quality are one of the most important purposes in ART cycles. Follicular fluid provides an important microenvironment for development of oocytes and some biochemical characteristics of the follicular fluid, such as pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPP-A), may play an important role in prediction of success rate of ART. OBJECTI...

Assessment of embryo quality in order to choose the embryos that most likely result in pregnancy is the critical goal in assisted reproductive technologies (ART). The current trend in human in vitro fertilization/embryo transfer (IVF/ET) protocols is to decrease the rate of multiple pregnancies after multiple embryo transfer with maintaining the pregnancy rate at admissible levels (according to...

Objective. To test if serum hCG levels the morning after the ovulatory hCG injection correlate with (1) retrieval efficiency, (2) oocyte maturity, (3) embryo quality, (4) pregnancy, and/or (5) time to implantation in patients undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Design. Retrospective cohort analysis. Setting. University-based IVF clinic. Patient(...

Background: Acute high dose exposure to teratogenic chemicals alters the proper development of an embryo leading to infertility, impaired fecundity, and few viable offspring. However, chronic exposure to sub-toxic doses of teratogens during early development may also have long-term impacts on egg quality and embryo viability. Methods: To test the hypothesis that low dose exposure during early d...

OBJECTIVE To compare embryo quality and reproductive outcome in our IVF program according to the women's body mass index (BMI). DESIGN Retrospective study. SETTING University-affiliated infertility clinic, between January 2001 and April 2007. PATIENT(S) Women undergoing a total of 6,500 IVF-intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) cycles. INTERVENTION(S) Six thousand five hundred IVF-ICS...

background: melatonin, a reactive oxygen species (ros) scavenger and an antioxidant, has been shown that can inhibit apoptosis. administration of melatonin may improve embryo development in assisted reproductive technology (art). objective: the aim of this study was to evaluate the role of melatonin in inhibition of spontaneous and induced apoptosis by tumor necrosis factor alph (tnf-α) and act...

Background & Aims: One of the most common causes of infertility in women is ovarian causes, especially polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). However, in patient with PCOS, the number of oocytes taken increased during the IVF, but these oocytes have often low quality, which ultimately leads to reduce fertilization potential. The aim of this research was investigation of PCOS on oocytes quality and p...

BACKGROUND Clinical reproductive centers produce large amounts of surplus poor-quality embryos annually, how to maximize the use of these embryos, and which of them have the potential to develop into blastocyst stage and influencing factors were lack of systematic research. OBJECTIVE To investigate the fate of surplus poor-quality embryos which were cultured to obtain blastocyst, determine th...

Abstract In bovine females, the production of embryos derived from oocytes obtained by ovum pick-up (OPU) is becoming a frequent procedure. Collection pre-pubertal animals enables shortening genetic distance, especially in high-value animals. Nevertheless, oocyte and later embryo developmental potential differ between prepubertal adult heifers. The aim this study was to determine possible under...