Active clinical trials for "Infertility"

Evaluation of ovarian function by a questionnaire and by medical file analysis of women and girls who underwent ovarian cortex cryopreservation for fertility preservation between 1997 an 2013 in the investigators' institution in order to evaluate their residual ovarian function. A second part of the questionnaire concerns these women's satisfaction regarding the procedure.

The purpose of this study is to determine if sperm DNA fragmentation is associated with in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcomes when euploid embryos are transferred.

Recent research has revealed that subtle abnormalities can be found in sperm samples that seem to be normal with conventional analysis techniques. The DNA in the sperm heads is sometimes fragmented and this may be the reason why couples with a diagnosis of unexplained infertility do not achieve pregnancy. We are planning a study to examine the incidence of DNA fragmentation in the sperm of couples with previously unexplained infertility. In a first treatment cycle with intra-uterine insemination the percentage of DNA fragmentation in sperm will be measured. Afterwards the results of the patients who are pregnant will be compared with those of the not pregnant ones. We expect to find differences between both groups. 100 patients will be included in the study.

Do TNF-308 and -238 polymorphisms impact the embryo implantation rate after in vitro fertilization (IVF) in women without female infertility factor ?

The Reproductive Medicine Network (RMN) is a nationwide cooperative network of 7 clinical sites and a data coordination center, and is sponsored in 5 year increments by The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The RMN is charged with designing, implementing and publishing high quality clinical research in reproductive medicine. It has been in existence for over 15 years and has performed several seminal clinical trials that have fundamentally changed clinical practice in this field. In addition, many worthy ancillary protocols have been generated and published. It is this latter fact, as well as the continued interest by investigators both inside and outside the RMN for access to DNA or serum samples from the previously performed trials, that has motivated the present investigators to proactively begin a biologic samples repository from the ongoing and pending RMN clinical trials. Ideally, this repository would allow investigators to seamlessly access trial samples for many years into the future, and thus greatly amplify the use of resources and the impact of the RMN.

Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) is used in medically assisted procreation, to induce an ovarian stimulation in women. However, the FSH dose that has to be injected is quite hard to adjust, because an excess of exogenous hormone could lead to very severe complications for patient. This hormone acts on its cognate receptor, the FSHR, present on the granulosa cells surface, and which regulation involve the intra-cytoplasmic carboxy-terminus domain. The investigators first aimed to research in the c-terminus part of the receptor the presence of allelic variants that could explain the variations of response to FSH stimulation. The investigators also would want to complete the data already known on a functionally determinant single nucleotide polymorphism on 680 position in the c-terminus part of the hFSHR. Then, the investigators would analyze the entire sequence of the hFSHR of patients presenting an unusual phenotype in response to FSH treatment, in order to detect a potential mutation involved in the receptor functionality. The results of this study could allow us to increase our knowledge on the hFSHR physiology and functionality, in order to adjust treatment to the genetic profile of patients.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the Eeva System may be used to identify embryos on Day 2 that are most likely to form blastocysts.

No proven therapy to restore ovarian function and fertility is available to patients with karyotypically normal spontaneous premature ovarian failure. We know that one-half of these patients have primordial follicles remaining in the ovary, and these follicles can function intermittently. This is a diagnostic omnibus protocol that permits baseline clinical evaluation of patients with prematurem ovarian failure. The findings will determine patients' suitability for specifically focused therapeutic research protocols.

Infertility is defined as the inability of a couple to achieve pregnancy over an average period of one year (in women under 35 years of age) or 6 months (in women above 35 years of age) of unprotected sexual intercourse. Infertility can be due to female, male reasons or both. It can be either primary or secondary. Thyroid dysfunction and autoimmune thyroiditis are known adverse risk factors for pregnancy as well as fertility, regardless of the presence of disease in women of reproductive age. In particular, hypothyroid women are at an increased risk of menstrual disorders and infertility because of altered peripheral estrogen metabolism, hyperprolactinaemia and abnormal release of gonadotropin-releasing hormone. The prevalence of subclinical hypothyroidism characterized by aberrant high serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels with normal free thyroxin (FT4) levels in infertile women are reported to be approximately 20% and it is a primary cause of subfertility. Indeed, average TSH levels in infertile women were reportedly higher than those in normal fertile women. And elevated serum TSH levels were associated with diminished ovarian reserve in infertile patients. Moreover, although levothyroxine replacement therapy for subclinical hypothyroidism in infertile patients remains debatable, thyroxin supplementation may improve fertility to successful pregnancy. This data suggests that hypothyroidism is strongly correlated with infertility (Velkeniers et al., 2013). On the other hand, female fecundity decreases with increasing age, primarily because of decreased ovarian function. Anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) is a dimeric glycoprotein belonging to the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-B) super family, which act on tissue growth and differentiation. It is produced by the granulosa cells from pre-antral and small antral follicles. Ovarian research after oophorectomy showed that serum AMH levels were closely correlated with the number of primordial follicles; therefore, AMH is a suitable biomarker of ovarian age in women of reproductive age. Expectedly, ovarian function may be affected by impaired thyroid function, although this association has not been elucidated. In this study, we will evaluate the relationship between thyroid function and AMH levels by comparing them in infertile patients and healthy fertile women.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether intrauterine hCG can improve the implantation rate and clinical pregnancy rate after embryo transfer in IVF/ICSI cycle.