Low anti-Müllerian hormone level is not a risk factor for early pregnancy loss in IVF/ICSI treatment

STUDY QUESTION: Is a low ( SUMMARY ANSWER: A low or moderately low serum AMH level does not associate with miscarriage, non-visualized pregnancy loss or overall early pregnancy loss rate in the IVF/ICSI treatment. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Low AMH predicts poor ovarian response and small oocyte yield in IVF/ICSI treatment, but its value in the evaluation of live birth rate (LBR) is modest Little is known about the risk of early pregnancy loss in ART among women with low AMH. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: A retrospective cohort study on 1383 women undergoing their first oocyte retrieval for IVF/ICSI in Helsinki University Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, between 2012 and 2016, with all associated fresh (n = 1315) and frozen-thawed (n = 1418) ET cycles finished by August 2018. AMH was measured within 12 months before the IVF/ICSI stimulation. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: Of all the women, 235 (17.0%) had low (= 2.0 mu g/L) AMH. The primary outcomes were miscarriage, non-visualized pregnancy loss and early pregnancy loss (miscarriage and non-visualized pregnancy loss combined) after fresh or frozen-thawed ET. The impact of AMH on these outcomes was calculated in three populations: among all women who became pregnant, among women with AMH MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: Of 1123 pregnancies, 285 (25.4%) ended in non-visualized pregnancy loss and 143 (12.7%) in miscarriage. The LBR was 24.6% per ET (673/2733). Low or moderately low AMH, compared with normal AMH, did not associate with miscarriage or non-visualized pregnancy loss in analyses among all women who became pregnant (adjusted relative risk (RR) for miscarriage vs live birth, 0.70 and 95% CI 0.42-1.17 in low AMH and adjusted RR, 1.00 and 95% CI, 0.68-1.49 in moderately low AMH; adjusted RR for non-visualized pregnancy loss vs live birth, 0.90 and 95% CI, 0.65-1.23 in low AMH and adjusted RR, 1.09 and 95% CI 0.85-1.41 in moderately low AMH), nor did low or moderately low AMH associate with the overall early pregnancy loss rate (adjusted RR for early pregnancy loss vs live birth, 0.86 and 95% CI, 0.68-1.10 in low AMH and adjusted RR, 1.01 and 95% CI, 0.86-1.27 in moderately low AMH). Results remained similar after restricting the analysis to women with AMH LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: The number of miscarriages in women with low AMH was moderately small, limiting the power of the study. The real-world clinical setting of the study restricted the ability to control for all factors causing selection bias. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: The cLBR was higher among women with normal AMH than among women with low or moderately low AMH in their first IVF/ICSI treatment because these women had more oocytes and embryos. Women with low or moderately low AMH did not have an increased risk for early pregnancy loss. This information is reassuring for couples and useful in counseling. These results are also valuable when assessing the overall effectiveness of IVF/ICSI treatment.Peer reviewe

Maximal Figure-of-Merit Framework to Detect Multi-label Phonetic Features for Spoken Language Recognition

Bottleneck features (BNFs) generated with a deep neural network (DNN) have proven to boost spoken language recognition accuracy over basic spectral features significantly. However, BNFs are commonly extracted using language-dependent tied-context phone states as learning targets. Moreover, BNFs are less phonetically expressive than the output layer in a DNN, which is usually not used as a speech feature because of its very high dimensionality hindering further post-processing. In this work, we put forth a novel deep learning framework to overcome all of the above issues and evaluate it on the 2017 NIST Language Recognition Evaluation (LRE) challenge. We use manner and place of articulation as speech attributes, which lead to low-dimensional “universal” phonetic features that can be defined across all spoken languages. To model the asynchronous nature of the speech attributes while capturing their intrinsic relationships in a given speech segment, we introduce a new training scheme for deep architectures based on a Maximal Figure of Merit (MFoM) objective. MFoM introduces non-differentiable metrics into the backpropagation-based approach, which is elegantly solved in the proposed framework. The experimental evidence collected on the recent NIST LRE 2017 challenge demonstrates the effectiveness of our solution. In fact, the performance of speech language recognition (SLR) systems based on spectral features is improved for more than 5% absolute Cavg. Finally, the F1 metric can be brought from 77.6% up to 78.1% by combining the conventional baseline phonetic BNFs with the proposed articulatory attribute features

Increased Matrix Metalloproteinase (MMPs) Levels Do Not Predict Disease Severity or Progression in Emphysema

Rationale: Though matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are critical in the pathogenesis of COPD, their utility as a disease biomarker remains uncertain. This study aimed to determine whether bronchoalveolar lavage (BALF) or plasma MMP measurements correlated with disease severity or functional decline in emphysema. Methods: Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and luminex assays measured MMP-1, -9, -12 and tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinase-1 in the BALF and plasma of non-smokers, smokers with normal lung function and moderate-to-severe emphysema subjects. In the cohort of 101 emphysema subjects correlative analyses were done to determine if MMP or TIMP-1 levels were associated with key disease parameters or change in lung function over an 18-month time period. Main Results: Compared to non-smoking controls, MMP and TIMP-1 BALF levels were significantly elevated in the emphysema cohort. Though MMP-1 was elevated in both the normal smoker and emphysema groups, collagenase activity was only increased in the emphysema subjects. In contrast to BALF, plasma MMP-9 and TIMP-1 levels were actually decreased in the emphysema cohort compared to the control groups. Both in the BALF and plasma, MMP and TIMP-1 measurements in the emphysema subjects did not correlate with important disease parameters and were not predictive of subsequent functional decline. Conclusions: MMPs are altered in the BALF and plasma of emphysema; however, the changes in MMPs correlate poorly with parameters of disease intensity or progression. Though MMPs are pivotal in the pathogenesis of COPD, these findings suggest that measuring MMPs will have limited utility as a prognostic marker in this disease. © 2013 D'Armiento et al

Optimization of total protein and activity assays for the detection of MMP-12 in induced human sputum

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Proteolysis of matrix components, in particular elastin, is a major contributing factor to the development of lung diseases such as emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). MMP-12 (macrophage elastase) is a protease known to be involved in the progression of lung disease. The relatively low abundance of MMP-12 has precluded the development of quantitative assays that can accurately measure MMP-12 protein levels and activity across cohorts of healthy and diseased individuals.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Commercial antibodies were screened for performance in sandwich ELISA and capture FRET activity assay formats. Precision, accuracy, sensitivity, dilution linearity, and spike recovery were evaluated using sputum samples.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Total protein and capture FRET activity assays were developed that were sensitive enough to detect MMP-12 in 37 of 38 donor sputum samples. A comparison of results between the two assays shows that a majority of sputum MMP-12 is in the active form. No differences were seen between normal, asthmatic, and COPD donors.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Sensitive and quantitative assays for both MMP-12 activity and total protein in human induced sputum have been developed. These assays can be used to evaluate MMP-12 as a biomarker for lung disease, and to monitor efficacy of potential therapeutic compounds.</p

Cigarette smoke exposure facilitates allergic sensitization in mice

BACKGROUND: Active and passive smoking are considered as risk factors for asthma development. The mechanisms involved are currently unexplained. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine if cigarette smoke exposure could facilitate primary allergic sensitization. METHODS: BALB/c mice were exposed to aerosolized ovalbumin (OVA) combined with air or tobacco smoke (4 exposures/day) daily for three weeks. Serology, lung cytopathology, cytokine profiles in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and on mediastinal lymph node cultures as well as lung function tests were performed after the last exposure. The natural history and the immune memory of allergic sensitization were studied with in vivo recall experiments. RESULTS: Exposure to OVA induced a small increase in OVA-specific serum IgE as compared with exposure to PBS (P < 0.05), while no inflammatory reaction was observed in the airways. Exposure to cigarette smoke did not induce IgE, but was characterized by a small but significant neutrophilic inflammatory reaction. Combining OVA with cigarette smoke not only induced a significant increase in OVA-specific IgE but also a distinct eosinophil and goblet cell enriched airway inflammation albeit that airway hyperresponsiveness was not evidenced. FACS analysis showed in these mice increases in dendritic cells (DC) and CD4(+ )T-lymphocytes along with a marked increase in IL-5 measured in the supernatant of lymph node cell cultures. Immune memory experiments evidenced the transient nature of these phenomena. CONCLUSION: In this study we show that mainstream cigarette smoke temporary disrupts the normal lung homeostatic tolerance to innocuous inhaled allergens, thereby inducing primary allergic sensitization. This is characterized not only by the development of persistent IgE, but also by the emergence of an eosinophil rich pulmonary inflammatory reaction

Cigarette smoke-induced pulmonary emphysema in scid-mice. Is the acquired immune system required?

BACKGROUND: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is associated with a chronic inflammatory response of the host to chronic exposure to inhaled toxic gases and particles. Although inflammatory cells of both the innate and adaptive immune system infiltrate the lungs in pulmonary emphysema and form lymphoid follicles around the small airways, the exact role of the acquired immune system in the pathogenesis of emphysema is not known. METHODS: In this study, wild type Balb/c mice and immunodeficient scid mice – which lack functional B- and T-cells – were exposed to mainstream cigarette smoke (CS) for 5 weeks or 6 months. RESULTS: Subacute CS-exposure for 5 weeks significantly increased innate inflammatory cells (neutrophils, macrophages and dendritic cells) in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid of wild type mice and scid mice, which correlated with the CS-induced upregulation of the chemokines Monocyte Chemotactic Protein-1, Macrophage Inflammatory Protein-3α and KC (= mouse Interleukin-8). Chronic CS-exposure for 6 months significantly increased the number of neutrophils, macrophages, dendritic cells, CD4(+ )and CD8(+ )T-lymphocytes in BAL fluid and lungs of wild type mice compared to air-exposed littermates, and augmented the size and number of peribronchial lymphoid follicles. In contrast, neither B-lymphocytes, nor T-lymphocytes, nor lymphoid follicles could be discerned in the lungs of air- or CS-exposed scid mice. Importantly, chronic CS-exposure induced pulmonary emphysema in both wild type animals and scid mice, as evidenced by a significant increase in the mean linear intercept and the destructive index of CS-exposed versus air-exposed animals. The CS-induced emphysema was associated with increased mRNA expression of matrix metalloproteinase-12 in the lungs and increased protein levels of Tumor Necrosis Factor-α in the BAL fluid of CS-exposed Balb/c and scid mice compared to air-exposed littermates. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that the adaptive immune system is not required per se to develop pulmonary emphysema in response to chronic CS-exposure, since emphysema can be induced in scid mice, which lack lymphoid follicles as well as functional B- and T-cells