Background: A number of important problems remain unresolved in the field of ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES (ART) using germ cells from a single donor. We aimed to assess attitudes about the use of sex gamete donation in ART in different social groups including medical workers, oocyte recipients, and oocyte donors. Methods: To achieve this goal, we surveyed 286 participants from seven countries. Of them, 190 were medical workers from ART clinics (respondents from seven countries), 45 were oocyte recipients, and 51 were oocyte donors. Results: The main motive for oocyte donation was financial compensation, which draws attention to the social disadvantage of the donor population. Medical workers with more than 5 years of work experience (79.7%) supported the use of programs tracking donor sex cells and limiting the use of oocyte donors. Conclusion: The willingness and consent of the surveyed medical workers and oocyte recipients to use the donor material and create a unified registry of donor sex cells demonstrates the importance of this issue.

ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES (ART) like in vitro fertilization have enabled many infertile couples to achieve pregnancy. Although ART pregnancies have long been known to be characterized by increased rates for certain maternal complications, these complications are predictable based on the mother’s more advanced age - increased medical complications like hypertension or diabetes mellitus. Increased pregnancy loss also occurs, mostly reflecting the increased fetal aneuploidy again associated with advanced maternal age.Neonatal outcome complications include low birth weight, which is predictable in the context of multiple gestations. However, low birth weight also occurs in singleton pregnancies, suggesting inherent differences in offspring of ART pregnancies versus non-ART pregnancies. Frequency of congenital anomalies in offspring of ART pregnancies is 25-30 % higher (odds ratio 1.25-1.3) than in offspring of pregnancies in the general population. There is no increase in any particular anomaly, excepting hypospadias in offspring of ICSI pregnancies. Of relevance, women who become pregnant without ART but whose time to pregnancy exceeds 12 months also show increased odds ratio for birth defects. Thus, the factors that cause infertility must predispose to birth defects as well. The increase in birth defects seems less likely to be due to the ART procedure per se than to the underlying problem that necessitated ART.The magnitude of the increase is not enough to deter couples wishing to achieve pregnancy, but it becomes necessary to provide adequate counseling to couples undergoing ART.

Introduction: This study illustrated the global contribution to ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES (ARTs) research in MEDLINE database from 1998 to 2014.Methods: In March 2015, the MEDLINE database was searched for research publications indexed under‘REPRODUCTIVE techniques, ASSISTED’ (including the following MeSH headings: in vitro fertilization [IVF]; intracytoplasmic sperm injections; cryopreservation; and ovulation induction), with the following expressions in the fields of title or abstract intrauterine insemination; sperm donation; embryo/egg donation and surrogate mothers. The number of publications in MEDLINE database was recorded for each individual year, 1998–2014, and for each country. The following countries were arbitrarily selected for data retrieval: United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan (G7 countries), Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRIC countries), Egypt, Turkey, Israel and Iran.Results: The absolute number of publications for each country from 1998 to 2014 ranged from 75 to 16453, with a median of 2024. The top five countries were the US (16453 publications), the UK (5427 publications), Japan (4805), China (4660) and France (3795). ART (20277), cryopreservation (11623) and IVF (11209) were the most researched areas.Conclusion: Global research on ARTs were geographically distributed and highly concentrated among the world’s richest countries. Cryopreservation and IVF were the most productive research domains among ARTs.