Objective To evaluate the impact of vaginal microbiota on pregnancy outcomes in women undergoing assisted reproduction. Design A prospective cohort study. Setting A university‐based assisted reproductive technology (ART) centre. Population 223 women undergoing ART treatment. Methods Prior to embryo transfer, vaginal samples were collected from the posterior fornix. Vaginal microbiota identification was carried out using next‐generation sequencing and categorised according to the V3–V4 hypervariable region in the 16S rRNA gene region. Main outcome measures ART clinical outcomes (implantation, clinical pregnancy rates and live birth rates). Results The live birth rate in women with community state type (CST)‐I (39%) was higher than that in women with CST‐III (21.5%) but the difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.052). The relative abundance of Lactobacillus was lower in women who failed to become pregnant (NP group) (67.71%) than in women who became pregnant (PR group) (79.72%). However, this difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.06). In the NP group, the relative abundance of Streptococcus (7.81%) and Gardnerella (9.40%) was higher than that in the PR group (relative abundance of Streptococcus and Gardnerella was 2.28% and 5.56%, respectively). The abundance of Streptococcus was found to be statistically significantly different between the two study groups (P = 0.014). Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) further validated that Streptococcus had the highest contribution (LDA score >4.0) to the difference between these two groups. Conclusions Streptococcus has the highest contribution to the distinction between the PR and NP groups. Tweetable abstract A relatively high abundance of Streptococcus in the vaginal microbiota may be associated with a lower ART success rate.

and gynecology, division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility, inonu university Faculty of medicine, malatya, turkey SummAry -The objective was to investigate whether the method of treatment (surgical or medical) affects achieving a new pregnancy, as well as the time to and prognosis of the new pregnancy, in women with ectopic pregnancy (eP). information on patients treated in our hospital between 2013 and 2014 for eP was retrieved from the computerized patient records. data on whether these patients achieved pregnancy after eP treatment, time from treatment to new pregnancy, and prognosis of pregnancy were collected by phone interviews. A total of 101 women were analyzed. in addition to descriptive analysis, the χ 2 -test and Kruskal Wallis test were used to compare the groups. A new pregnancy was present in 84 (83.2%) of the women after eP treatment. There was no significant difference among the women having undergone medical treatment (methotrexate), surgical treatment, medical treatment followed by surgical treatment, or observational management approach in terms of achieving a new pregnancy after treatment and time to and prognosis of the new pregnancy. The study could not determine which treatment method would be superior in women with eP and in planning future pregnancy, but concluded that close clinical and laboratory monitoring is appropriate before deciding on aggressive interventions.

Our results suggest that over-expression of placental NF-kB is correlated with elevation of serum inflammatory markers and placental ultrastructural changes, which may point to an important role of local and systemic inflammatory activation in the pathogenesis of HELLP syndrome.

Aim: The aim of this study was to analyze whether urocortin-1 concentration in midtrimester amniotic fluid could serve as an indicative marker of preterm labor. Material and Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted. Urocortin-1 concentrations in midtrimester amniotic fluid were measured in 22 pregnant women with preterm deliveries and 45 women who delivered at term using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: The median amniotic fluid urocortin-1 concentration was significantly lower in the women with preterm birth (40.06 pg/mL; range, 13.77-67.58 pg/mL) than in the women who gave birth at term (49.56 pg/ mL; range, 26.25-175.9 pg/mL; P = 0.022). The result of receiver-operator curve analysis indicates that an amniotic fluid urocortin-1 concentration Յ 57.88 pg/mL had an area under the curve of 0.673 (95% confidence interval, 0.55-0.78; P = 0.01) with a sensitivity of 81.8%, specificity of 40.0%, positive predictive value of 40%, and a negative predictive value of 82% in identifying which of the patients subsequently delivered prematurely. Conclusions: These results suggest that low urocortin-1 concentration in midtrimester amniotic fluid could be used as an indicative marker of preterm birth.

Aim:The aim of this study was to determine whether there was a difference in placental metabolite profiles between patients with fetal growth restriction (FGR) and healthy controls. Methods: The study included 10 patients with FGR diagnosis with 14 healthy controls with both matched maternal age and body mass index. 1 H HR-MAS NMR spectroscopy data obtained from placental tissue samples of patients with FGR and healthy control group were analyzed with bioinformatics methods. The obtained results of metabolite levels were further validated with the internal standard (IS) quantification method.Results: Principal component analysis (PCA) and the partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) score plots obtained with the multivariate statistical analysis of preprocessed spectral data shows a separation between the samples from patients with FGR and healthy controls. Bioinformatics analysis results suggest that the placental levels of lactate, glutamine, glycerophosphocholine, phosphocholine, taurine, and myoinositol are increased in patients with FGR compared to the healthy controls. Conclusions: Placental metabolic dysfunctions are a common occurrence in FGR.