Search results for "Andrology"
showing 10 items of 410 documents
Long-term storage in liquid nitrogen does not affect cell viability in cardiac valve allografts
2007
Liquid nitrogen is the most common medium used by tissue banks for the storage of cryopreserved heart valves. This study evaluates the effect of the length of storage on human cryopreserved heart valves. Human tissues (14 aortic and 13 pulmonary) were frozen in a controlled-rate freezer (1 degrees C/min) and stored in the liquid phase of a nitrogen tank for 9.1+/-1.6 years. The preservative solution was medium M199 containing 5% human serum albumin and 10% Me(2)SO. After thawing in a water bath at 42 degrees C, the cryoprotectant was removed. Then, fragments from vascular wall and leaflet were dissected. Explant cultures and histological studies were performed in order to assess cell viabil…
Functional assessment of the quality of human hepatocyte preparations for cell transplantation.
2008
Hepatocyte transplantation is an alternative therapy to orthotopic liver transplantation for the treatment of liver diseases. Good quality freshly isolated or cryopreserved human hepatocytes are needed for clinical transplantation. However, isolation, cryopreservation, and thawing processes can seriously impair hepatocyte viability and functionality. The aim of the present study was to develop a fast and sensitive procedure to estimate the quality of hepatocyte preparations prior to clinical cell infusion. To this end, cell viability, attachment efficiency, and metabolic competence (urea synthesis and drug-metabolizing P450 activities) were selected as objective criteria. Viability of hepat…
New options in assisted reproduction technology: the Cryotop method of oocyte vitrification
2008
The Cryotop vitrification method has been shown to be a very useful tool for oocyte cryopreservation, giving excellent results regarding survival and clinical outcome. There are several clinical situations in which oocyte cryopreservation provides solutions that have not been available to date. This report describes three of these situations: (i) a low-responder patient who needed a single gene diagnosis due to the presence of a genetic disease; (ii) a patient undergoing endometrial bleeding on the day of oocyte retrieval who was also affected by a genetic disorder; and (iii) a patient who failed to become pregnant after the donation of vitrified oocytes and subsequently had the re-vitrifie…
Primary DNA damage in peripheral mononuclear blood cells of workers exposed to bitumen-based products.
1996
The genotoxic effect of occupational exposure to bitumen-based products was determined by the extent of DNA strand breaks and alkali-labile sites of the DNA of peripheral mononuclear blood cells from seven roofers, 18 road paving workers, and nine bitumen painters. In order to evaluate short-term genotoxic effect the workers were investigated on Fridays and on Mondays after a weekend free of occupational exposure. The roofers (all cigarette smokers) showed a significantly (P < 0.002) 43% higher mean level of alkaline DNA strand breaks on Friday than did the ten smoking controls included in this study. Also, comparison of the individual levels of alkaline strand breaks on Mondays and on Frid…
Smoking habits of parents and male: female ratio in spermatozoa and preimplantation embryos
2005
BACKGROUND Previous observations have addressed a decreased male:female ratio associated with smoking. Our aim was to assess whether this effect is observed at the spermatozoa or at the early embryo development. METHODS We retrospectively assessed smoking intake habits of 56 couples included in our preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) program. Three groups were established according to male or female cigarette consumption per day: non-smokers, smokers (1-19 cigarettes per day) and heavy smokers (> or =20 cigarettes per day). Fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) was performed on ejaculated sperm samples to analyse chromosomes X and Y. On day 3, embryos were also analysed. Additionall…
Value of the sperm deoxyribonucleic acid fragmentation level, as measured by the sperm chromatin dispersion test, in the outcome of in vitro fertiliz…
2005
To determine the prognostic value of sperm DNA fragmentation levels, as measured by the sperm chromatin dispersion (SCD) test, in predicting IVF and ICSI outcome.Double-blind prospective study.University-affiliated private IVF setting.A total of 85 couples undergoing infertility treatment with IVF/ICSI.Analysis of DNA fragmentation by the SCD test in 170 aliquots obtained from the ejaculate and from the processed semen used for assisted reproductive technologies (ART).Percentage of spermatozoa with fragmented DNA was statistically correlated with embryo quality and reproductive success.Fertilization rate was inversely correlated with DNA fragmentation (r = -0.245 P = .045). Higher DNA fragm…
Intracytoplasmic sperm injection with cryopreserved testicular spermatozoa
2001
To assess if testicular sperm cryopreservation is a valid alternative to repetition of testicular sperm retrieval techniques, results of a cryopreservation technique in pills have been retrospectively analyzed. Enough motile spermatozoa for ICSI were obtained in 172 from 190 (90.5%) frozen-thawed testicular sperm samples. Overall, 249 couples underwent 390 ICSI cycles, 156 using fresh and 234 using cryopreserved testicular sperm. Mean two-pronuclear fertilization rates per cycle were not significantly different after ICSI with fresh (62.0%) or with cryopreserved (63.2%) spermatozoa. Mean embryo cleavage rate per cycle was higher in the fresh (90.6%) than in the cryopreserved (84.6%) group (…
Objective evaluation of the morphology of human epididymal sperm heads.
2000
Spermatozoa were obtained from nine epididymal regions of six epididymides taken from five men undergoing castration for prostatic carcinoma (53-76 years) and from one man with testicular cancer (38 years). Spermatozoa were obtained by mincing tissue in phosphate-buffered saline, making air dried smears and staining with Hemacolor. The percentage of sperm heads categorised subjectively as normal (of uniform shape) or otherwise was calculated for each region. This confirmed that grossly swollen sperm heads (previously shown to be artefacts) were only present in proximal regions of the duct. A computer-aided sperm morphology analyser (Sperm Class Analyzer(R)) was used to provide objective mea…
Analysis of chromosomal abnormalities in testicular and epididymal spermatozoa from azoospermic ICSI patients by fluorescence in-situ hybridization
2003
BACKGROUND: An increased incidence of numerical chromosomal abnormalities has been reported in the ejaculated spermatozoa of infertile patients. However, there are few cytogenetic studies of testicular and epididymal spermatozoa, and their results are still controversial. METHODS: Fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) analysis of chromosomes 13, 18, 21, X and Y was performed on seven testicular samples and two epididymal samples from patients with obstructive azoospermia (OA), and on 13 testicular samples from patients with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA). Five ejaculated sperm samples from normozoospermic fertile donors were evaluated as a control group. RESULTS: Both epididymal sper…
First report of the absence of viral load in testicular sperm samples obtained from men with hepatitis C and HIV after washing and their subsequent u…
2008
Human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C infections are sexually transmitted diseases that require sperm samples to be pretreated to eliminate the viral presence before their safe use in assisted reproduction treatments. In this report we describe our experience with sperm washing protocols applied to sperm cells from testicular biopsies as well as the results obtained in subsequent assisted reproduction treatments on seropositive males that are also azoospermic.