Soluble HLA-G in IVF/ICSI embryo culture supernatants does not always predict implantation success: a multicentre study.

International audienceSeveral reports have described an association between the presence of soluble human leukocyte antigen G (sHLA-G) in human embryo culture supernatants (ES) and implantation success. However, not all studies agree with these findings. To further document this debate, a multicentre blinded study was performed to investigate, on a large number of IVF ES and ICSI ES, whether sHLA-G is a useful criterion for embryo selection before transfer. A total of 1405 ES from 355 patients were collected from three assisted reproductive technique (ART) centres and evaluated for their sHLA-G content in a single laboratory, using a chemiluminescence enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. In only one centre was a significant association between sHLA-G-positive ES and successful implantation established (P = 0.0379), whereas no such association was observed in the other centres. It was found that the percentages and concentrations of sHLA-G-positive ES varied between centres, depending on culture media and ART conditions. The percentage of sHLA-G-positive ES was significantly higher in IVF ES than ICSI ES (P < 0.001 and P < 0.01 for two centres). These data demonstrate that substantial variations of sHLA-G content in ES occur between different ART centres, highlighting the influence of several technical parameters that differ from one centre to another

The invention of sadism? The limits of neologisms in the history of sexuality

How important is a new word for the development of newly imagined sexual pathology? In the case of the neologism 'sadism' at the fin de siècle, this invention was strangely both pivotal and incidental. Tracking sexual concepts, as Laqueur does for masturbation, requires that the neologisms invented at precise historic moments be both recontextualized in relation to earlier discourses, and problematized as stable constructs in their ongoing development. This article is a genealogical sketch of this kind in relation to 'sadism', as part of a larger inquiry into how this sexual construct became available to the Frankfurt School philosophers and as an explanation for Nazi genocidal cruelty