Fertility specialists’ views, behavior, and attitudes towards the use of endometrial scratching in Italy

Background: Endometrial scratching (ES) or injury is intentional damage to the endometrium performed to improve reproductive outcomes for infertile women desiring pregnancy. Moreover, recent systematic reviews with meta-analyses and randomized controlled trials demonstrated that ES is not effective, data on the safety are limited, and it should not be recommended in clinical practice. The aim of the current study was to assess the view and behavior towards ES among fertility specialists throughout infertility centers in Italy, and the relationship between these views and the attitudes towards the use of ES as an add-on in their commercial setting. Methods: Online survey among infertility centers, affiliated to Italian Society of Human Reproduction (SIRU), was performed using a detailed questionnaire including 45 questions with the possibility to give "closed" multi-choice answers for 41 items and "open" answers for 4 items. Online data from the websites of the infertility centers resulting in affiliation with the specialists were also recorded and analyzed. The quality of information about ES given on infertility centers websites was assessed using a scoring matrix including 10 specific questions (scored from 0 to 2 points), and the possible scores ranged from 0 to 13 points ('excellent' if the score was 9 points or more, 'moderate' if the score was between 5 and 8, and 'poor' if it was 4 points or less). Results: The response rate was of 60.6% (43 questionnaires / 71 infertility SIRU-affiliated centers). All included questionnaires were completed in their entirety. Most physicians (~ 70%) reported to offer ES to less than 10% of their patients. The procedure is mainly performed in the secretory phase (69.2%) using pipelle (61.5%), and usually in medical ambulatory (56.4%) before IVF cycles to improve implantation (71.8%) without drugs administration (e.g., pain drugs, antibiotics, anti-hemorrhagics, or others) before (76.8%) or after (64.1%) the procedure. Only a little proportion of infertility centers included in the analysis proposes formally the ES as an add-on procedure (9.3%), even if, when proposed, the full description of the indications, efficacy, safety, and costs is never addressed. However, the overall information quality of the websites was generally "poor" ranging from 3 to 8 and having a low total score (4.7 ± 1.6; mean ± standard deviation). Conclusions: In Italy, ES is a procedure still performed among fertility specialists for improving the implantation rate in IVF patients. Moreover, they have a poor attitude in proposing ES as an add-on in the commercial setting

Electrophilicity of coordinated carbon monoxide in alkoxydienylplatinum(II) carbonyl complexes. Synthesis of (diene)platinum(II) alkoxycarbonyl complexes

If alkoxydienyl complexes of the type [Pt(dieneOR)Cl]2 are allowed to react with carbon monoxide under mild conditions, unstable carbonyl complexes are formed. The carbonyl complexes may react with an alcohol to give alkoxycarbonyl complexes of the type (diene)PtClCOOR. This reaction involves nucleophilic attack of alcohol on the coordinated carbonyl group, and expulsion of the alkoxyl group from the dienyl moiety with formation of a coordinated carboncarbon double bond. This reaction, however, is not of general occurrence. A comparison is made between the electrophilicities of coordinated carbon monoxide and coordinated carboncarbon double bond. © 1974

Numerical integration for the real time production of fundamental ephemerides over a wide time span

A simplified model of the solar system has been developed along with an integration method, enabling to compute planetary and lunar ephemerides to an accuracy better than 1 and 2 milliarcsecs, respectively. On current personal computers, the integration procedure (SOLEX) is fast enough that by using a relatively small (similar to 20 Kbytes/Cy) database of starting conditions, any epoch in the time interval (up to +/-100 Cy) covered by the database can be reached by the integrator in a few seconds. This makes the algorithm convenient for the direct computation of high precision ephemerides over a time span of several millennia

Model ligands for copper proteins. Proton magnetic resonance study of acetylhistamine and acetylhistidine complexes with copper(I)

The complexes (acetylhistamine)2copper+ and (acetyl-L-histidine)2copper+ have been studied in aqueous solutions by means of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The amide group proved to be unable to complex Cu+ both alone and in conjunction with the nonspecific imidazole ligand. The Cu2+ specific carboxylate group, on the other hand, appears to be a possible site of coordination also for Cu+ when coupled with the imidazole ligand. These results are interpreted with respect to the problem of the active site of copper proteins with redox activity

Intermolecular Cross-coupling between 2-Olefin and 1-Allyl Ligands in Cationic Platinum(II) and Palladium(II) Complexes

The n1-allyl platinum and palladium cationic complexes tridentate neutral pincer ligand [(PNP)M(n1-CH2CH=CHR1)]+ (1, PNP = 2,6-bis-diphenylphosphinomethylpyridine) undergo intermol. attack of the terminal gamma-carbon atom of the allyl system at the coordinated olefin of dicationic platinum and palladium complexes [(PNP)M(n2-CH2=CHR)]2+ (2), producing binuclear species [(PNP)M(n2:n1-CH2=CHCHR1CHRCH2)M(PNP)]3+ (4), in which the metal formerly p-coordinated becomes s-bonded, and the metal formerly s-bonded becomes p-coordinated. The reaction can be run catalytically with respect to the addn. of ethylene to a n1-allyl complex, using the dicationic ethylene complex as catalyst