Assisted reproductive technology in reproductive medicine - possibilities and limitations

Abstract

Infertility has become an increasingly common health problem and has been estimated to affect approximately 10% of women in the reproductive age. Due to its high prevalence, it has been deemed a social disease by the World Health Organization (WHO). The causes of infertility are numerous and vary from person to person. As for treatment, the three main therapeutic strategies include pharmacological therapy, surgical therapy - mostly endoscopy, and assisted reproductive technology (ART). Recent decades have witnessed great progress in ART, resulting in successful treatment of the previously untreatable cases, particularly in the field of fertility preservation, preimplantation screening for aneuploidy, uterine transplantations and mitochondrial replacement techniques as prevention against a number of severe diseases. Regardless, ART treatment does not guarantee pregnancy and live birth. The success rate is much smaller as compared to the failure rate, it being among its most important limitations. Embryo implantation is an extremely complex process and represents the most critical step of the reproduction process in humans. Attempts to evaluate endometrial receptivity and strategies for its correction have been discussed. The search for new effective predictors of an individual prognosis remains a crucial challenge for the contemporary reproductive medicine.

Keywords: assisted reproductive technology (ART); endometrial receptivity; infertility; limitations of ART; possibilities of ART.