Conflict of interest

STUDY QUESTION: What are the reproductive experiences and outcomes of people who store reproductive material before cancer treatment? SUMMARY ANSWER: Of respondents who had tried to achieve pregnancy since completing cancer treatment almost all had succeeded, in most cases through natural conception. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: People of reproductive age who are diagnosed with cancer can cryopreserve reproductive material to guard against the adverse effects on fertility of gonadotoxic treatment...

BACKGROUND: Most contemporary neuroscientific models of alcohol use disorders (AUD) incorporate an imbalance between enhanced cue reactivity, which results in a strong urge to consume, and the impaired inhibitory control of that urge. While these phenomena have been frequently investigated separately, studies involving both aspects and thus precisely investigating the postulated imbalance are rare. In this study, inhibition was investigated in an addiction-specific context and individual craving levels were also examined...

STUDY QUESTION: Are four urinary hCG/menotropin (hMG) and one recombinant preparation characterized by different molecular features and do they mediate specific intracellular signaling and steroidogenesis? SUMMARY ANSWER: hCG and hMG preparations have heterogeneous compositions and mediate preparation-specific cell signaling and early steroidogenesis, although similar progesterone plateau levels are achieved in 24 h-treated human primary granulosa cells in vitro...

STUDY QUESTION: Does dynamin regulate human sperm acrosomal exocytosis? SUMMARY ANSWER: Our studies of dynamin localization and function have implicated this family of mechanoenzymes in the regulation of progesterone-induced acrosomal exocytosis in human spermatozoa. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Completion of an acrosome reaction is a prerequisite for successful fertilization in all studied mammalian species. It follows that failure to complete this unique exocytotic event represents a common aetiology in the defective spermatozoa of male infertility patients that have failed IVF in a clinical setting...

BACKGROUND: Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) remains an important cause of mortality and morbidity in preterm infants and inflammation plays a significant role in its pathogenesis. The use of inhaled corticosteroids may modulate the inflammatory process without concomitant high systemic steroid concentrations and less risk of adverse effects. This is an update of a review published in 2012 (Shah 2012). We recently updated the related review on "Inhaled versus systemic corticosteroids for treating bronchopulmonary dysplasia in ventilated very low birth weight preterm neonates"...

STUDY QUESTION: Do freezing and in vitro culture procedures enhance the expression of proteins involved in apoptotic or autophagic pathways in murine pre-pubertal testicular tissue? SUMMARY ANSWER: In vitro maturation strongly modified apoptosis- and autophagy-related relative protein levels in mice testicular tissue whereas the impact of cryopreservation procedures was minimal at the end of the culture. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: In vitro spermatogenesis remains a challenging technical issue as it imposes to find a very close balance between survival and death of germ cell natural precursors (i...

STUDY QUESTION: What is the role of metachronal and synchronous sliding in sperm flagellar motility? SUMMARY ANSWER: Both metachronal and oscillatory synchronous sliding are essential for sperm flagellar motility, while the change in mode of synchronous sliding between the non-oscillatory synchronous sliding of a specific pair of the doublet microtubules and the oscillatory synchronous sliding between most pairs of doublet microtubules modulates the sperm flagellar motility...

STUDY QUESTION: Does administration of corifollitropin alfa followed by highly purified (hp) HMG result in higher ongoing pregnancy rates compared with daily recombinant FSH (rFSH) in young poor responders? SUMMARY ANSWER: Corifollitropin alfa followed by hp-HMG does not increase ongoing pregnancy rates compared with rFSH in young poor responders, although more supernumerary cryopreserved embryos were obtained with corifollitropin alfa and hp-HMG. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Poor ovarian response remains one of the main therapeutic challenges in women undergoing ovarian stimulation, given that very low live birth rates of 6% have been reported in this particular group of infertile patients...

STUDY QUESTION: To what extent do financial, demographic and cultural determinants explain the vast cross-national differences in ART treatments in Europe? SUMMARY ANSWER: The normative cultural acceptance of ART is a major driver of ART treatments in Europe, above and beyond differences in country wealth, demographic aspects and religious composition. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: There are vast differences in the number of ART treatments across European countries, which are to some extent related to country affluence, regulation, and insurance coverage and costs...

STUDY QUESTION: In women undergoing IVF/ICSI who miscarry in their first complete cycle, what is the chance of a live birth in subsequent complete cycles, and how does this compare with those whose first complete cycle ends with live birth or without a pregnancy? SUMMARY ANSWER: After two further complete cycles of IVF/ICSI, women who had miscarried or had a live birth in their first complete cycle had a higher chance of live birth (40.9 and 49.0%, respectively) than those who had no pregnancies (30...

STUDY QUESTION: Could surrogate indexes identify insulin resistant individuals among women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)? SUMMARY ANSWER: Surrogate indexes may be able to rule in, but not rule out, insulin resistance in women with PCOS. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Insulin resistance is a typical finding of women with PCOS and most clinical information on this issue is based upon surrogate indexes of insulin resistance. However, data on the performance of these indexes in PCOS women are very limited...

STUDY QUESTION: Do young adult survivors of childhood cancer know their fertility status, in the context of their parenthood goals and screening for gonadal functioning? SUMMARY ANSWER: While 80% of survivors (who were without children) wanted children in the future, most did not know their fertility status, and screening for gonadal functioning was underutilized. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Survivors of childhood cancer are at risk for infertility, but fertility counseling and assessment are underutilized...

STUDY QUESTION: Is testicular growth affected by a testicular biopsy intended for fertility preservation in pre-pubertal boys with cancer? SUMMARY ANSWER: Testicular growth of the biopsied testis is not impeded in comparison to the non-biopsied contralateral testis up until 1 year after surgery. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Fertility preservation in pre-pubertal boys by means of testicular biopsy has been conducted for more than 15 years. Although immediate adverse effects of testicular biopsy are rare (1%), no data exist on the effect of biopsy on testicular growth...

STUDY QUESTION: Can differences in DNA isolation alter assessment of sperm telomere length (spTL) and do they account for conflicting results in the literature on spTL and male fertility? SUMMARY ANSWER: DNA isolation methods preferentially include or exclude short, extrachromosomal (EC) telomere-specific sequences that alter spTL measurements, and are responsible for a proportion of the disparity observed between investigations. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: The relationship between spTL and male fertility has become an active area of research...

STUDY QUESTION: Can live birth be accurately predicted following surgical resection of moderate-severe (Stage III-IV) endometriosis? SUMMARY ANSWER: Live births can accurately be predicted with the endometriosis fertility index (EFI), with adnexal function being the most important factor to predict non-assisted reproductive technology (non-ART) fertility or the requirement for ART (www.endometriosisefi.com). WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Fertility prognosis is important to many women with severe endometriosis...

BACKGROUND: Paranoia involves thoughts and beliefs about the harmful intent of others but the social consequences have been much less studied. We investigated whether paranoia predicts maladaptive social behaviour in terms of cooperative and punitive behaviour using experimental game theory paradigms, and examined whether reduced cooperation is best explained in terms of distrust as previous studies have claimed. METHODS: We recruited a large population sample (N = 2132) online...

As understanding of the human microbiome improves, novel therapeutic targets to improve human health with microbial therapeutics will continue to expand. We outline key considerations of balancing risks and benefits, optimising access, returning key results to research participants, and potential conflicts of interest.

Background: To reduce the effect of antimicrobial resistance and to preserve antibiotic effectiveness, clinical guidelines and health policy documents call for the rational use of antibiotics, which aims to reduce unnecessary or minimally effective antibiotic use. Methods: Through ethical analysis, we show that rational use programmes can lead to ethical conflicts, because they sometimes place patients at risk of harm-for example, a delayed switch to second-line antibiotics for community-acquired pneumonia can lead to substantial increases in mortality...

BACKGROUND: This is an update of a review published in 2012. A related review "Inhaled versus systemic corticosteroids for preventing bronchopulmonary dysplasia in ventilated very low birth weight preterm neonates" has been updated as well. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a serious and common problem among very low birth weight infants, despite the use of antenatal steroids and postnatal surfactant therapy to decrease the incidence and severity of respiratory distress syndrome. Due to their anti-inflammatory properties, corticosteroids have been widely used to treat or prevent BPD...

Urothelial carcinoma (UC) carcinogenesis has been hypothesized to occur through epigenetic repression of tumor-suppressor genes (TSGs). By quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction array, we found that one potential TSG, angiopoietin-like 4 (ANGPTL4), was expressed at very low levels in all bladder cancer cell lines we examined. Previous studies had demonstrated that ANGPTL4 is highly expressed in some cancers, but downregulated, by DNA methylation, in others. Consequently, owing to these seemingly conflicting functions in distinct cancers, the precise role of ANGPTL4 in the etiology of UC remains unclear...