To review the current status and new trends in assisted reproduction.

Overview

Design:
The literature on intrauterine insemination, IVF, ICSI, MESA/TESE, preimplantation ge-netic diagnosis, cryopreservation, in vitro maturation, cloning and stem cells.Setting: Assisted Reproduction Centre, Ist Medical Faculty of Charles University Prague andGeneral Hospital Prague, Apolinářská 18, 128 00, Prague 2, Czech Republic.Results: IUI, IVF, ICSI also in combination with MESA/TESE are widely used relatively higheffective procedures. According to Czech Republic Assisted Reproduction Registry, the pregnan-cy rate per transfer using IVF, ICSI is 25%, 30% respectively. Cryopreservation of sperm andembryos is a basic part of assisted reproduction, the resulst with oocytes freezing are still notsatisfactory. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis is performed in few countries only due to techni-cal barriers and ethical restrictions. Other methods like cloning, nuclear transfer, embryotherapyor gene manipulation using embryonic stem cells are still only subjects of research.Conclusion: During the last ten years, assisted reproduction showed rapid development in a num-ber of treated couples and the spectrum of used methods changed radically.

Key words:
assisted reproduction methods, IVF, ICSI, MESA/TESE, cryopreservation, cloning, em-bryotherapy, embryonic stem cells