Eight technical innovations designed to improve reproductive outcome: promising or sobering facts?

Course co-ordinator
Johnny Awwad (Lebanon) and Mohammad Aboulghar (Egypt)

Course type
Basic and advanced

Course description
Developments in medical technology have led to numerous interventions designed to improve human fertility. Innovations such as Time-lapse embryo imaging, Intra Cytoplasmic Morphology Selected Sperm Injection (IMSI), Pre-implantation Genetic Aneuploidy Screening (PGS), Sperm DNA fragmentation, Adherence compounds in embryo transfer media, Gene profiling in endometrium, Micro-dissection Testicular Sperm Extraction (Micro TESE) and many others, have been introduced to enhance the reproductive outcome of women undergoing assisted reproduction. These breakthrough technologies have largely been the outcome of extensive research and exciting findings in various experimental models before making their way into human reproduction. In addition to advancing our ability to alter reproductive pathways, such technologies have also greatly expanded our understanding of the biology of reproduction. Many however have been hastily introduced into clinical practice with little evidence of improved reproductive outcome, often driven by couples’ eagerness to try any promising innovation before the evidence is available to support their use.

This pre-congress course discusses some of these technical innovations introduced into the practice of assisted reproduction over the past several years, with the prime focus of evaluating their clinical relevance to improving live births in view of emerging scientific evidence.

• Reproductive Endocrinologists and Fertility Specialists 
• Biologists involved in Assisted Reproductive Technologies
• Policy Regulators and Representatives of Third Party Payers

• Describe the biologic pathways relevant to human reproduction
• Understand the working hypotheses for introducing the innovations described into assisted reproduction
• Evaluate the merits of each described breakthrough in improving live births in women undergoing assisted reproduction
• Formulate an evidence-based decision on whether to offer any one of these technologies in the context of infertility management in women