The fate of cryopreserved sperm acquired during vasectomy reversals

PURPOSE: Intraoperative sperm banking has been recommended during vasectomy reversal. These specimens are maintained as insurance for possible future intracytoplasmic sperm injection. We evaluated the fate of specimens collected intraoperatively from 48 vasectomy reversal patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Of 75 men 48 (64.0%) agreed to intraoperative sperm banking during vasectomy reversal. A total of 135 vials of epididymal sperm, 81 vials of testicular tissue and 13 vials of vasal sperm were cryopreserved. RESULTS: Among couples who stored sperm 10 (20.8%) voluntarily discarded the specimens within 4 months of vasectomy reversal. Specimens from 31 couples (64.5%) remain in storage. Seven couples (14.6%) have used frozen sperm for intracytoplasmic sperm injection. In 3 of these couples the men were azoospermic after surgery, 2 men had 10,000 to 15,000 sperm per ml. in the ejaculate with limited motility and 2 had 1 to 2 million sperm per ml. with limited motility. The 7 women who underwent intracytoplasmic sperm injection ranged between 37 and 39 years old, which was older than the mean age of the remaining study group (32.7 years). With intracytoplasmic sperm injection fertilization was achieved in all cases and 20 of 47 eggs (42.5%) developed into embryos. Of 7 women 4 achieved biochemical pregnancies (57.1%) and 2 (28.6%) delivered newborns with epididymal sperm. Natural pregnancy occurred in 7 of 16 vasectomy reversal couples (43.7%) who were followed at least 18 months postoperatively but the time to pregnancy averaged 1 year. CONCLUSIONS: Cryopreservation of sperm collected at vasectomy reversal is recommended for patients undergoing vasoepididymostomy or vasovasostomy. The couples who used the cryopreserved sperm for intracytoplasmic sperm injection included husbands whose postoperative ejaculate remained azoospermic or severely oligospermic and wives who were approaching 40 years old. Only a limited number of couples (14.6% of the study group) have used the cryopreserved sperm but the delivered newborn rate (28.6%) was comparable to other intracytoplasmic sperm injection data. The natural pregnancy rate after vasectomy reversal was 43.7% but the time to pregnancy after surgery was lengthy (average 1 year). These findings may be helpful for counseling couples who are planning vasectomy reversal surgery and may be considering intraoperative sperm banking.     

Semantische Technologien für Produktionsprozessinnovationen in der Landwirtschaft

Optimization of production processes in agriculture requires that innovation in form of efficiency enhancing devices is being continuously introduced and integrated within the production environments. This paper describes how semantic modelling, web services and automatic logical reasoning are used as system enablers for such value-adding integration in implementation of semantic-based diagnoses supporting optimization of milk production processes of dairy farms.     

Ovine arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase in the pineal and pituitary glands: differences in function and regulation

The enzyme arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (AANAT; EC 2.3.1.87) has been conventionally linked with the biosynthesis of melatonin within the pineal gland and retina. This study establishes that AANAT messenger RNA (mRNA) and functional enzyme occurs within the pars tuberalis (PT) and to a lesser degree within the pars distalis (PD) of the sheep pituitary gland; expression in these tissues is approximately 1/15th (PT) and 1/300th (PD) of that in the ovine pineal gland. AANAT mRNA in the PT appears to be expressed in the same cells as the Mel1a receptor. No evidence was obtained to indicate that either PT or PD cells have the ability to synthesize melatonin, suggesting that this enzyme plays a different functional role in the pituitary. We also found that cAMP regulation of the abundance of AANAT mRNA differs between the PT and pineal gland. Forskolin (10 microM) has no effect on pineal AANAT mRNA levels, yet represses expression in the PT. This suppressive influence could be mediated by ICER (inducible cAMP response early repressor), which is induced by forskolin in both tissues. Although it appears that the specific function and regulation of AANAT in the pituitary gland differ from that in the pineal gland, it seems likely that AANAT may play a role in the broader area of signal transduction through the biotransformation of amines.