The following articles represents an Update on CHR activities. If you want further information on any of these articles, please email Tom Weidner.

With the June UPDATE, we traditionally enter the summer break and, unless urgent matters require communication, don’t publish further UPDATEs until September. Staff vacations are starting, though, in contrast to many other fertility centers, we neither shut down laboratories, nor limit clinical services. Indeed, clinical services continue uninterrupted, with either Dr. Gleicher, or Dr. Barad (and often both), being present at all times.

Indeed, we expect the summer months to be anything, but quiet: A record number of overseas patients, from all over the world, are announced and we also anticipate many out- of-state patients in NYC during summer breaks. Summer was, until a few years ago, always accompanied by a slowing in cycle activities. Recent years have, however, become increasingly busy at CHR and we expect a record summer this year.

FUTURE CHR ACTIVITY

We, encourage interested parties in an infertility assessment to contact us.

In parallel, we also have to prepare for a very busy fall season, both clinically and academically. In September at the World Congress for IVF in Montreal, Canada, Dr. Gleicher was asked to participate in a formal discussion on single versus two-embryo transfer in IVF. This is, of course, currently a very controversial issue and the CHR team has extensively published on the topic. CHR strongly believes that singleton pregnancies for most patients represent an ideal pregnancy outcome. At the same time, CHR (again, based on extensive research) knows that many well informed patients, fully understanding the risks, actually prefer twin pregnancies. And, as always, at CHR we strongly support the input of patients into their treatment decisions.

Immediately following the World Congress in Montreal, Dr. Gleicher will travel to Innsbruck, Austria, where he will be the guest speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Austrian Fertility Society, giving a talk on “ART in low responders (Women above age 40).”Amongst other topics, he will be presenting CHR’s greatly improved IVF pregnancy rates in women above age 40 during 2006.

In October Dr. Barad and Dr. Gleicher will attend the Annual Meeting of the ASRM in Washington, DC. CHR submitted a record number of abstracts and, while it is still unknown how many have been accepted, this year’s meeting undoubtfully will be a busy one for the CHR staff. Dr. Gleicher then immediately travels to Chicago for a presentation at the Central Association Meeting on “The effect of DHEA on IVF outcome in women above age 40.”

By the end of the month it is off to Japan for Dr. Gleicher, where, for the 2nd year in a row, he is an invited speaker at the Annual Ovarian Physioloy Conference and will present a talk, entitled “Age-specific ovarian function testing improves determination of ovarian reserve.” From Japan he travels to Buenos Aires, Argentina to present at a South American Fertility Conference a talk on “Premature ovarian aging: Diagnosis and treatment.” Immediately following that event, he returns to Asia, this time to the World Congress on Controversies in Ob/Gyn, where he has been on the faculty for a number of years. Amongst a number of talks and session chairmanships, he will be presenting a talk on “The treatment of ovarian aging.”

By the time all of these commitments are over and done with, it will be once again time to consider vacations. The Christmas/ Hanukkah season will be upon us and another very busy time period will start for CHR.

HONORS RECEIVED

CHR was honored for its research, when Andrea Weghofer, M.D., Ph.D. won the “Best of Best Award”, out of 220 presentations, at the Annual Meeting of the Austrian and German Society for Obstetrics and Gynecology in Munich, Germany June 7-9, 2007, for the paper “Are women with premature ovarian aging at increased risk for chromosomal abnormal embryos?”

Careful readers of CHR’s UPDATEs will recall that women with premature ovarian aging (POA) fortunately do not demonstrate increased aneuploidy rates, as women with physiologically aging ovaries do. Indeed, a manuscript, reporting these facts in detail, is in press in Fertility Sterility, can be already seen on the journal’s website, and should appear in print momentarily (see also below).

We, encourage interested parties in improving their IVF rate to contact us.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

The year 2007 has, so far, once again, been a very prolific one for CHR. Here is a listing of papers, which already appeared or currently are in press, and are expected to appear in print within weeks:

(1) Gleicher N. Why much of the pathophysiology of preeclampsia-eclampsia has to be autoimmune in nature. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2007;196:5.e1-5.e7

(2) Gleicher N. A difficult decision (editorial). J Assist Reprod Genet 2007;24:3-4

(3) Gleicher N, Barad D. Gender as a risk factor for autoimmune disease. J Autoimmunity 2007;28:1-6

(4) Gleicher N, Barad D. DHEA and testosterone in the elderly (letter). N Engl J Med 2007;356:637-8

(5) Weghofer A, Schnepf S, Barad D, Gleicher N. The impact of luteinizing hormone in assisted reproduction. Expert Opin Obstet Gynecol 2007;19:253-7

(6) Barad DH, Weghofer A, Gleicher N. Age-specific levels for basal follicle- stimulating hormone assessment of ovarian function. Obstet Gynecol 2007;109:1404-10

(7) Gleicher N. Pregnancy-related cell traffic, microchimerism and autoimmunity: the possibility of reducing autoimmune disease prevalence. Expert Rev Obstet Gynecol 2007;2:341-5

(8) Gleicher N, Weghofer A, Barad D. Update on the comparison of assisted reproduction outcomes between Europe and the USA: the 2002 data. Fertil Steril 2007;87:1301-5

(9) Gleicher N, Barad DH. Mild versus standard in-vitro fertilization techniques (letter). Lancet 2007;369:1855

(10) Weghofer A, Munne S, Chen S, Barad D, Gleicher N. Lack of association between polycystic ovary syndrome and embryonic aneuploidy. Fertil Steril April 12, 2007I [Epub ahead of print]

(11) Weghofer A, Barad D, Li JM, Gleicher N. Aneuploidy rates in embryos from women with prematurely declining ovarian function: a pilot study. Fertil Steril Feb. 9, 2007 [Epub ahead of print]

(12) Gleicher N. postpartum depression, an autoimmune disease? Autoimm Rev In press; doi:10.1016

(13) Gleicher N, Weghofer A, Barad D. Female infertility due to abnormal autoimmunity: frequently overlooked and greatly underappreciated. Part I. Expert Rev Obstet Gynecol 2007; In press;

(14) Gleicher N, Weghofer A, Barad D. female infertility due to abnormal autoimmunity: frequently overlooked and greatly underappreciated. Part II. Expert Rev Obstet Gynecol; In press;

Reprints for any of these articles can be ordered by e-mail at editorial@thechr.com or by telephone at (312)876-1506.

DHEA NEWS

Our data accumulation on the utilization of DHEA continues. As we previously announced, based on our 2006 IVF data, we have now started to recommend DHEA pre-treatment prior to IVF for all women above age 40.

We are also looking forward for first reports on the utilization from other fertility centers around the world. We are hearing from colleagues in many countries that they have started active DHEA supplementation of their patients with diminished ovarian function. The practice seems to have gained especially strong footholds in Japan, Israel and Australia. DHEA data from outside of CHR should, therefore, be come available in the near future. If you are interested in determining if DHEA is right for you please contact us.

Prematurely Aging Ovaries (POA)

Amongst many different ongoing research projects, the one we currently are pursuing most aggressively, is the improvement in the ability to diagnose POA. We feel that the ability to diagnose POA early is not only of crucial importance for infertility patients, but also has considerable applications in the general population.

At a time when women increasingly defer childbearing, it seems crucial to be able to offer young women a reliable assessment of their “ovarian age.” Our goal is to develop an age-specific method of ovarian function assessment, which will permit the average, young female, at time when she has her annual PAP smear taken, to have a simple blood test, which will tell her how age-appropriate her ovarian function really is. Since approximately 10% of women suffer from POA, affected women will then have the chance to reconsider their reproductive planning.

POA testing also seems of particular importance for certain ethnicities. As we previously reported, our research on young egg donors suggests that young Chinese women demonstrate a significantly higher prevalence of POA than Caucasian women.

Finally, the timely diagnosis is, of course, especially important for infertile patients who, only too often, go undiagnosed and/or with a false diagnosis of so-called unexplained infertility.

We will, of course, keep you informed about our progress in this area of our research effort. Hopefully, there will be additional news to be reported after the summer. Until then we wish everybody a wonderful summer break. If you are interested in a prematurely ovarian aging consultation contact us.

PREVIOUS UPDATES

We will continue posting periodic UPDATES, when there are news to report from CHR. So, continue looking for them! These are exciting times at CHR, and we thank you for your interest in our work.

Previous CHR Update 06/07

Previous CHR Update 05/07

Previous CHR Update 03/07

Previous CHR Update 02/07

Previous CHR Update 01/07

Previous CHR Update 12/06

Previous CHR Update 10/06

Previous CHR Update 09/06

Previous CHR Update 08/06

Previous CHR Update 06/06

Previous CHR Update 03/06

Previous CHR Update 01/06

Previous CHR Update 11/05

Previous CHR Update 10/05