Main topics in assisted reproductive market: A scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Infertility affects around 12% of couples, and this proportion has been gradually increasing. In this context, the global assisted reproductive technologies (ART) market shows significant expansion, hovering around USD 26 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach USD 45 billion by 2025. OBJECTIVES: We realized a scoping review of the ART market from academic publications, market reports, and specialized media news, to identify the main terms and characterize them into the main topics in the area. DESIGN: We apply an LDA topic modeling process to identify the main terms, and clustered them into semantic synonymous topics. We extracted the patterns and information to these topics and purposed a factor/consequence correlation to them. RESULTS: We found 2,232 academic papers and selected 632 to include in the automatic term detection. We also included 34 market reports and seven notices produced by specialized enterprises. Were identified 121 most relevant cited terms covering 7,806 citations. These terms were manually aggregated into 10 topics based on semantic similarity: neutral terms (37.2%), economic aspects (17.6%), in vitro fertilization (IVF) commodities & cross-border reproductive care (CBRC) (10.6%), geographic distribution (9.5%), social aspects (7%), regulation (6%), trends & concerns (3.9%), accessibility (3.4%), internet influence (2.9%), and fertility preservation for non-medical reasons (2%). DISCUSSION: The analysis indicates a market with expressive complexity. Most terms were associated with more than one topic, indicating the synergism of this market's behavior. Only seven terms related to economic aspects, surrogacy and donation represent around 50% of the citations. Except for the topic formed by generic terms, the topic of the economic aspects was the most represented, reflecting macro perspectives such as a-la-carte standard of treatments, many clinics operating on a small/medium scale, and the recent formation of conglomerates. The IVF commodities & CBRC topic brings an overview of gametes pricing and transnational surrogacy, and its regulation. The topic of geographic distribution indicates that that the Asia-Pacific (APAC) market has the most significant growth potential in all fields. Despite the increase in supply and demand for infertility treatments and technological advances in recent decades, the success rate of IVF cycles remains at around 30%. Terms referring to research and development or technical improvement were not identified in a significant way in this review. CONCLUSIONS: The formation of topics by semantic similarity proved to be an initial path for the elaboration of in-depth studies on the dynamics between several factors, for this, we present the panel classifying main terms into factors (demand, pent-up demand, or distributive) or ART market consequences. Through this approach, it was possible to observe that most of the works addresses economic aspects, regulation and geographic aspects and that topics related to research and improvement have not been addressed. In this way, we highlight the need to deepen the analysis of market elements that may be related to increased efficiency of IVF in the technical field.

Human seminal virome: a panel based on recent literature.

BACKGROUND: The seminal virome and its implications for fertility remain poorly understood. To date, there are no defined panels for the detection of viruses of clinical interest in seminal samples. RESULTS: In this study, we characterized the human seminal virome based on more than 1,000 studies published over the last five years. CONCLUSIONS: The number of studies investigating viruses that occur in human semen has increased, and to date, these studies have been mostly prospective or related to specific clinical findings. Through the joint analysis of all these studies, we have listed the viruses related to the worsening of seminal parameters and propose a new panel with the main viruses already described that possibly affect male fertility and health. This panel can assist in evaluating semen quality and serve as a tool for investigation in cases of infertility.

RéSUMé: CONTEXTE: Le virome séminal et ses implications pour la fertilité restent mal compris. À ce jour, il n'existe pas de panels définis pour la détection des virus d'intérêt clinique dans les échantillons de sperme. RéSULTATS: Dans cette étude, nous avons caractérisé le virome séminal humain sur la base de plus de 1000 études publiées au cours des cinq dernières années. CONCLUSIONS: Le nombre d'études portant sur les virus présents dans le sperme humain a augmenté et, à ce jour, ces études ont principalement été prospectives ou liées à des résultats cliniques spécifiques. Grâce à l'analyse conjointe de toutes ces études, nous avons répertorié les virus liés à l'aggravation des paramètres spermatiques, et nous proposons un nouveau panel avec les principaux virus déjà décrits qui peuvent affecter la fertilité et la santé masculines. Ce panel peut aider à évaluer la qualité du sperme et servir d'outil d'investigation dans les cas d'infertilité.