Revitalizing female fertility: platelet-rich plasma - hype or hope?

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has gained popularity as an experimental tool in regenerative medicine, with potential applications in reproductive medicine. This review will assess the existing literature on the role of PRP in female fertility enhancement, focusing on ovarian rejuvenation and increased endometrial thickness. PRP is being explored as a treatment for recurrent implantation failure, primary ovarian insufficiency and poor ovarian response. While the influence of PRP on endometrial thickness and implantation success is postulated, its effectiveness remains the subject of debate due to protocol variability and unclear patient selection criteria. This narrative review includes 36 articles published before December 2022, and highlights the lack of comprehensive molecular studies examining the impact of PRP on reproductive capacity. This review underscores the importance of standardizing PRP preparation protocols in reproductive medicine. However, challenges persist, and there is a need for well-planned randomized controlled trials and a deeper understanding of the patient population that would gain the greatest benefit from PRP treatment. Clarifying these aspects is crucial to improve outcomes for low-prognosis patients undergoing assisted reproductive technology.

Prevalencia de endometritis crónica en mujeres infértiles establecida mediante histeroscopia y biopsia endometrial con CD138 / Prevalence of chronic endometritis in infertile women by hysteroscopy and endometrial biopsy with CD138

Resumen OBJETIVO: Determinar, mediante histeroscopia de evaluación y biopsia de endometrio, con análisis histológico endometrial e identificación de células plasmáticas con inmunohisdtoquímica con CD138 positiva, la prevalencia de endometritis crónica en pacientes infértiles. MATERIALES Y MÉTODOS: Estudio observacional, retrospectivo, efectuado de marzo de 2016 a noviembre del 2021 en el Centro de Reproducción Asistida de Saltillo (CREAS), Coahuila, México, en pacientes que consultaron por infertilidad. El diagnóstico de endometritis crónica se estableció mediante histeroscopia y biopsia de endometrio con inmunohistoquímica CD138. Se analizaron la prevalencia y precisión diagnóstica de la histeroscopia y la biopsia de endometrio. Además, la relación entre las características histeroscópicas específicas y la endometritis crónica confirmada por biopsia con CD138 positiva. RESULTADOS: La prevalencia de endometritis crónica por biopsia de endometrio CD138 positiva en las 170 pacientes estudiadas fue de 36% (n = 62) y por histeroscopia del 48.8% (n = 83), esta última con una sensibilidad del 48.3%, especificidad del 50.9%, valor predictivo positivo y negativo del 36.1 y 63.2%, respectivamente. En relación con las características histeroscópicas, la hiperemia endometrial tuvo una relación estadísticamente significativa con la prevalencia de endometritis crónica (p-value = 0.008; RM = 0.357; IC95%: 0.14-0.81) y con ≥ 2 características sugerentes de endometritis crónica (p-value = 0.015; RM = 3.63; IC95%: 1.15-12.69). CONCLUSIONES: En el procedimiento diagnóstico de la paciente infértil es importante descartar la endometritis crónica. Para ello es decisivo recurrir a herramientas diagnósticas, como la histeroscopia y confirmar el diagnóstico con una biopsia de endometrio con inmunohistoquímica CD138 positiva para que de esta manera pueda dirigirse el tratamiento.

Abstract OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of chronic endometritis in infertile patients by evaluating hysteroscopy and endometrial biopsy with endometrial histologic analysis and identification of plasma cells by CD138-positive immunohistochemistry. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Observational, retrospective study performed from March 2016 to November 2021 at the Center for Assisted Reproduction of Saltillo (CREAS), Coahuila, Mexico, in patients who consulted for infertility. Chronic endometritis was diagnosed by hysteroscopy and endometrial biopsy with CD138 immunohistochemistry. The prevalence and diagnostic accuracy of hysteroscopy and endometrial biopsy were analysed. The association between specific hysteroscopic features and chronic endometritis confirmed by CD138-positive endometrial biopsy was also investigated. RESULTS: The prevalence of chronic endometritis by CD138-positive endometrial biopsy in the 170 patients studied was 36% (n = 62) and by hysteroscopy 48.8% (n = 83), the latter with a sensitivity of 48.3%, specificity of 50.9%, positive and negative predictive values of 36.1 and 63.2%, respectively. In relation to hysteroscopic features, endometrial hyperemia had a statistically significant relationship with the prevalence of chronic endometritis (p-value = 0.008; RM = 0.357; 95%CI: 0.14-0.81) and with ≥ 2 features suggestive of chronic endometritis (p-value = 0.015; RM = 3.63; 95%CI: 1.15-12.69). CONCLUSIONS: In the diagnostic process of infertile patients, it is important to exclude chronic endometritis. It is crucial to use diagnostic tools such as hysteroscopy and to confirm the diagnosis by endometrial biopsy with positive CD138 immunohistochemistry in order to guide treatment.

No difference in morphokinetics between male and female preimplantation embryos from ART.

RESEARCH QUESTION: Do morphokinetic parameters vary between male and female preimplantation embryos? DESIGN: This was a retrospective cohort study of 175 cycles between March 2018 and June 2021 at two reproductive centres. It included time-lapse data from 92 female and 83 male preimplantation embryos exclusively issued from fresh oocyte donation and undergoing intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Only fresh elective single-embryo transfers on day 5 were assessed, and the sex of the embryo was confirmed at birth. The morphokinetic parameters analysed were measured in hours post-insemination (hpi). A two-tailed Student's t-test was used to compare the morphokinetics between embryo sexes and a value of P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Following strict inclusion criteria to avoid poor-quality preimplantation embryos, no significant differences were found in morphokinetic parameters when comparing cycles that resulted in female versus male live births for the following: time to pronuclear fading (22.1 ± 2.4 versus 22.4 ± 2.9 hpi; P = 0.52); time to the 2-cell stage (24.6 ± 2.5 versus 25.0 ± 2.5 hpi; P = 0.34); time to the 3-cell stage (35.3 ± 3.3 versus 35.8 ± 3.1 hpi; P = 0.28); time to the 4-cell stage (36.3 ± 3.4 versus 36.9 ± 3.7 hpi; P = 0.20); time to the 5-cell stage (47.9 ± 4.6 versus 48.0 ± 4.8 hpi; P = 0.88); time to the 8-cell stage (54.0 ± 6.5 versus 54.1 ± 6.5 hpi; P = 0.91); time to the start of blastulation (86.3 ± 14.6 versus 85.7 ± 15.5 hpi; P = 0.78); and time to the full blastocyst stage (93.0 ± 16.9 versus 93.2 ± 17.2 hpi; P = 0.94). CONCLUSIONS: There are no significant differences in morphokinetics between male and female preimplantation embryos.

An Ensemble and Multi-View Clustering Method Based on Kolmogorov Complexity.

The ability to build more robust clustering from many clustering models with different solutions is relevant in scenarios with privacy-preserving constraints, where data features have a different nature or where these features are not available in a single computation unit. Additionally, with the booming number of multi-view data, but also of clustering algorithms capable of producing a wide variety of representations for the same objects, merging clustering partitions to achieve a single clustering result has become a complex problem with numerous applications. To tackle this problem, we propose a clustering fusion algorithm that takes existing clustering partitions acquired from multiple vector space models, sources, or views, and merges them into a single partition. Our merging method relies on an information theory model based on Kolmogorov complexity that was originally proposed for unsupervised multi-view learning. Our proposed algorithm features a stable merging process and shows competitive results over several real and artificial datasets in comparison with other state-of-the-art methods that have similar goals.

Assisted Phytostabilization of Mine-Tailings with Prosopis laevigata (Fabaceae) and Biochar.

Phytoremediation is a cost-effective technique to remediate heavy metal (HM) polluted sites. However, the toxic effects of HM can limit plant establishment and development, reducing phytoremediation effectiveness. Therefore, the addition of organic amendments to mine wastes, such as biochar, improves the establishment of plants and reduces the bioavailability of toxic HM and its subsequent absorption by plants. Prosopis laevigata can establish naturally in mine tailings and accumulate different HM; however, these individuals show morphological and genetic damage. In this study, the effect of biochar on HM bioaccumulation in roots and aerial tissues, HM translocation, morphological characters and plant growth were evaluated, after three and six months of exposure. Plants grown on mine tailings with biochar presented significantly higher values for most of the evaluated characters, in respect to plants that grew on mine tailing substrate. Biochar addition reduced the bioaccumulation and translocation of Cu, Pb, and Cd, while it favored the translocation of essential metals such as Fe and Mn. The addition of biochar from agro-industrial residues to mine tailings improves the establishment of plants with potential to phytoextract and phytostabilize metals from polluted soils. Using biochar and heavy metal accumulating plants constitutes an assisted phytostabilization strategy with great potential for HM polluted sites such as Cd and Pb.

HRpI System Based on Wavenet Controller with Human Cooperative-in-the-Loop for Neurorehabilitation Purposes.

There exist several methods aimed at human-robot physical interaction (HRpI) to provide physical therapy in patients. The use of haptics has become an option to display forces along a given path so as to it guides the physiotherapist protocol. Critical in this regard is the motion control for haptic guidance to convey the specifications of the clinical protocol. Given the inherent patient variability, a conclusive demand of these HRpI methods is the need to modify online its response with neither rejecting nor neglecting interaction forces but to process them as patient interaction. In this paper, considering the nonlinear dynamics of the robot interacting bilaterally with a patient, we propose a novel adaptive control to guarantee stable haptic guidance by processing the causality of patient interaction forces, despite unknown robot dynamics and uncertainties. The controller implements radial basis neural network with daughter RASP1 wavelets activation function to identify the coupled interaction dynamics. For an efficient online implementation, an output infinite impulse response filter prunes negligible signals and nodes to deal with overparametrization. This contributes to adapt online the feedback gains of a globally stable discrete PID regulator to yield stiffness control, so the user is guided within a perceptual force field. Effectiveness of the proposed method is verified in real-time bimanual human-in-the-loop experiments.