First Irish delivery following sequential, two-stage embryo and blastocyst transfer.

BACKGROUND: The timing of embryo transfer (ET) after in vitro fertilisation (IVF) remains controversial, and there are no reliable guidelines available to prospectively identify which patients would benefit from either day-3 or blastocyst transfer. While blastocyst transfer is generally favoured over day-3 transfers, very few IVF patients get both in the same treatment cycle. CASE DESCRIPTION: We report on a 35.5-year-old female with tubal factor infertility who underwent IVF, which included transfer of a fresh day-3 embryo and a thawed blastocyst frozen at day 6. Transfer occurred on two separate days (days 3 and 6) in a two-stage/dual catheter fashion and resulted in a healthy term singleton livebirth. CONCLUSIONS: While combined day-3 and day-5 ET has been available elsewhere for several years, this is the first description of its successful application in Ireland and confirms the effectiveness of coordinated two-stage transfer in a single IVF treatment cycle.

The toxicity and antitumor activity of three individual fractions of lectins from Ricinus communis seeds.

Lectins from Ricinus communis seeds (RCL) have been resolved into three electrophoretically distinct fractions (alpha-RCL, beta-RCL, psi-RCL) by ion exchange chromatography on Watman CM-32 cellulose. The toxicity to mice and antitumor activity against murine lymphoma NK/Ly of pure fractions were compared. Optimal effect was achieved with alpha-RCL, Which possessed the lowest toxicity (1000 micron g/kg) and significant antitumor activity (63% inhibition of tumor growth).