Herman Tournaye

RESEARCH QUESTION: Are pregnancies in female same-sex couples at higher risk when using reception of oocytes from partner (ROPA) compared with intrauterine insemination (IUI)? DESIGN: A retrospective, single-centre, matched cohort study wa…

Research questionIn patients in whom endometrial polyps are diagnosed during ovarian stimulation for IVF, are there differences in reproductive outcomes in women continuing to undergo fresh embryo transfer, and those in whom embryos are cry…

Children conceived through assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have an elevated risk of lower birthweight, yet the underlying cause remains unclear. Our study explores mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variants as contributors to birthweight d…

The study investigates whether a 3-day pretreatment course with a GnRH antagonist in the early follicular phase has an impact on the number of retrieved COCs in a GnRH antagonist stimulation protocol. This is a retrospective single center c…

RESEARCH QUESTION: Does a frozen-embryo transfer in an artificially-prepared endometrium (FET-HRT) cycle yield similar clinical pregnancy rate with 7 days of oestrogen priming compared to 14 days? DESIGN: This is a single-centre, randomize…

OBJECTIVE: To study the presence of viral RNA in the follicular fluid, cumulus cells, and endometrial tissue samples in SARS-CoV-2-positive women undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART). DESIGN: Prospective, single-center, observ…

STUDY QUESTION: Does oocyte vitrification adversely affect the health of 2-year-old children compared with peers born after use of fresh oocytes in a donation programme? SUMMARY ANSWER: The growth and health of 2-year-old children born aft…

STUDY QUESTION: Does In vitro maturation (IVM) of immature oocytes affect health, including growth at 2 years of age, in singletons born to mothers with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)? SUMMARY ANSWER: This study of 92 singletons born aft…

Despite the considerate progress to which assisted reproduction technology (ART) has been subject since 1978, some issues remain unresolved. Notably, the clinical management of patients with a poor ovarian response is still a challenge in e…

PURPOSE: To evaluate whether ICSI offers any benefit compared with IVF in different ovarian response categories in case of non-male factor infertility. METHODS: This is a retrospective multicenter analysis using individual patient data, co…

Research Question: What is the effect of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH)-agonist treatment on serum anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH)? Design: This prospective cohort study conducted in a tertiary university hospital comprised patients (n …

INTRODUCTION: A drawback of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist protocols in in vitro fertilization (IVF) is that they have limited flexibility in cycle programming. This proof of concept study explored the efficacy of a single…

Since the introduction of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonists, an extensive amount of literature investigating the role of the downregulation protocols on pregnancy outcomes has been published. However, these studies were main…

STUDY QUESTION: What is the effect of vitamin D deficiency on the pregnancy rates following frozen embryo transfer (FET)?. SUMMARY ANSWER: Vitamin D deficiency does not affect pregnancy rates in FET cycles. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Although…

BACKGROUND: Thyroid autoimmunity (TAI) is frequent in infertile women, but to what extent thyroglobulin autoantibodies (Tg-Abs) contribute to TAI is unclear in the literature. The aims of the present study were to determine the prevalence o…

In infertile women, the prevalence of thyroid autoimmunity (TAI) is significantly higher compared to that in parous age-matched women. This is especially the case in women with endometriosis and the polycystic ovarian syndrome. TAI does not…

BACKGROUND: Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) in IVF/ICSI cycles may occur either as an early (early onset) or a late pattern (late onset). This observational study was designed to identify whether the onset pattern of OHSS is associ…

A prospective study was undertaken in 438 women (ages, 32 +/- 5 years) with various causes of infertility, and in 100 age-matched (33 +/- 5 years) healthy parous controls with the aim of assessing the prevalence of autoimmune thyroid diseas…

Infertility, a failure of conception after at least 12 months of unprotected intercourse, will affect 14–17% of couples at some time in their reproductive lives. The types of infertility, with their respective frequencies, are tubal and pel…

Fifty-seven patients who underwent hysteroscopic septum resection between January 1991 and December 1996 were studied; nine patients presented with recurrent abortions, 46 with infertility (26 primary and 20 secondary), one with dysmenorrho…

PURPOSE: Our purpose was to determine whether there is a need for a preliminary diagnostic laparoscopy in couples undergoing intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) because of severe male-factor infertility. METHODS: In this retrospective …

To assess the efficiency of transvaginal ultrasonography (TVUS) in the screening of pelvic pathologies in the initial workup of infertile women, we carried out a prospective comparison of sonographic diagnosis with laparoscopic and patholog…