Minutes of the Annual Assembly of Members, held in Milan on Tuesday 5 July 2022 at 18.00 CEST

A presentation from the front line on the last day of this annual meeting explained how fertility doctors have risked their lives to transport frozen gametes and embryos out of Ukraine after the Russian invasion, and how cryostorage facilities still remain in danger.

Although developments in AI, machine learning and automation were much in evidence at this meeting, a head-to-head debate concluded that there is still a way to go before machine learning algorithms live up to expectation, and still greater scientific, ethical and practical scrutiny is needed around AI.

A call for more research, more funding and more interest in male infertility and its treatment was made at an invited session at this annual meeting. Male factor infertility remains a major contributing factor to the continued expansion of assisted reproduction, even though fundamental questions in its biology and prevalence remain unanswered.

Manufacturers must ensure that all medical devices are certified as compliant with EU regulations introduced in 2017 and active from May 2024; however, assessment of certification applications is presently taking ‘13-18 months’, which risks leaving many products non-compliant for the European market.

Findings from a retrospective population-based study show and association between the severe eating disorder anorexia and a substantially increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Studies suggest a greater risk of pre-eclampsia and other hypertensive disorders of pregnancy in artificial cycles prepared with hormone therapy. Is that risk related to an absence of corpus luteum?

ESHRE’s first update since 2013 on its endometriosis guideline represents a major shift in use of keyhole surgery for diagnosis and treatment of this chronic disease, which affects millions of women worldwide. Endometriosis in adolescents is covered for the first time.

An invited presentation was made from the perspective of a Cochrane review but failed to find sufficient evidence for patient benefit in terms of live birth; the benefits so far lie clearly with the lab.

Preliminary data reported by European and global monitoring groups see cycles increasing, success rates stable, but frozen cycles continuing to rise relative to total treatments. China’s addition to the global database makes a big difference to worldwide trends.