Assisted reproduction and Coronavirus in Italy.

OBJECTIVE: A novel type of Coronavirus was identified in China in December 2019. The first cases of a form of pneumonia of unknown etiology were detected at the beginning of that month in Wuhan. The virus is believed to have emerged at the Wuhan Huanan Seafood Market, where transmission of a zoonotic pathogen to humans occurred. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Some studies conducted in China during the epidemic report small numbers of pregnant women infected with SARS-CoV-2 and some pregnancy complications in patients with COVID-19. However, they fail to document the transplacental passage of the virus from mother to fetus. RESULTS: Following the COVID-19 outbreak, guidelines for couples who are undergoing treatments of assisted reproduction have been issued by the International Federation for Fertility Societies (IFFS), the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) and the Latin American Network of Assisted Reproduction (REDLARA). They recommend couples to discuss assisted reproduction with their doctors while those at risk or with SARS-CoV-2 should consider freezing oocytes or embryos and retransferring them later. CONCLUSIONS: Other than the US, Italy is the country with the highest number of cases (197675 positives, 26644 deaths) (updated on April 26). The Italian National Transplant Centre and the Higher Institute of Health advised on March 17 to complete the cycles already started and not to start new cycles. Phase 2 will begin on 4 May with an increase in freedom of action and fertilization treatments will start again. The Society that brings together embryologists (SIERR) has issued the guidelines to be followed when this happens.

Common medium versus advanced IVF medium for cryopreserved oocytes in heterologous cycles.

Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulation factor plays different crucial roles during embryo implantation and subsequent development. Here we aimed to evaluate the effects of embryo cell culture medium, with the inclusion of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulation factor (GM-CSF), on embryo development and pregnancy rate. To this end, we took advantage of our retrospective observational study to correlate the outcomes from two different culture media. We included in this study 25 unselected patient from our IVF Center that underwent heterologous IVF cycle with crypreserved oocytes. We analyze the fertilization rate, pregnancy rate, and embryo quality at different day of transfer obtained from two different media composition. Our results show that the rate of fertilization and the pregnancy rate were increased using medium added with this particular type of cytokines (GM-CSF).