You are here

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

XML
Reproductive medicine
Cohort profile
The Uppsala–Stockholm Assisted Reproductive Techniques (UppStART) study
  1. Anastasia N Iliadou1,
  2. Anna Sara Öberg1,2,
  3. Jessica Pege1,
  4. Kenny A Rodriguez-Wallberg3,4,
  5. Jan I Olofsson5,
  6. Jan Holte6,7,8,
  7. Håkan Wramsby9,
  8. Margaretha Wramsby10,
  9. Sven Cnattingius11,
  10. Carolyn E Cesta1,12
  1. 1 Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  2. 2 Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  3. 3 Department of Reproductive Medicine, Division of Gynecology and Reproduction, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
  4. 4 Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  5. 5 Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  6. 6 Carl von Linne Kliniken, Uppsala, Sweden
  7. 7 Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala Universitet, Uppsala, Sweden
  8. 8 Centre for Reproductive Biology in Uppsala, University of Agricultural Science and Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
  9. 9 Livio Fertilitetscentrum Kungsholmen, Stockholm, Sweden
  10. 10 Livio Fertilitetscentrum Gärdet, Stockholm, Sweden
  11. 11 Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Department of Medicine Solna, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  12. 12 Centre for Pharmacoepidemiology, Department of Medicine Solna, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  1. Correspondence to Dr Carolyn E Cesta; carolyn.cesta{at}ki.se

Abstract

Purpose The Uppsala–Stockholm Assisted Reproductive Techniques (UppStART) study is a prospectively recruited sample of couples undergoing assisted reproduction in Stockholm and Uppsala county in Sweden. The study was initiated to (1) investigate possible changes in the epigenetic profile of infants inferred through the ART procedures and their consequence and (2) to assess the impact of lifestyle and health exposures on treatment outcome.

Participants Recruitment took place between September 2011 and December 2013, and in vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycles initiated and pregnancies conceived during this time were followed until December 2014. The cohort includes 971 participants (n= 514 women; n= 457 men), and 129 pregnancies were achieved from the first IVF cycle included in the study.

Findings to date Self-reported demographic, health and lifestyle data were collected from a baseline questionnaire, and to assess changes to lifestyle, a follow-up questionnaire was issued at the time of oocyte retrieval, and at subsequent IVF cycles. Questionnaire data were linked to data extracted from medical records. Biological samples were collected at baseline: blood for extraction of serum, plasma and DNA, morning and evening saliva samples for cortisol measurement and at delivery including samples of maternal blood, placenta and amniotic fluid, and cord blood for epigenetic analysis.

Future plans Through the unique identification number assigned to each Swedish citizen at birth or immigration, UppStART study participants will be linked to the Swedish population-based national and quality registers to provide data from prenatal, obstetrical, neonatal and infant care, and subsequent updates will provide data on childhood health and educational outcomes. Collaboration and use of UppStART data is encouraged, and more information about access can be found at www.ki.se/meb/uppstart

  • assisted reproductive techniques
  • in vitro fertilisation
  • infertility
  • lifestyle
  • epigenetics

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028866

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors ANI, JP, SC, KAR-W, JIO, JH, HW, MW, and ASÖ were responsible for the study design, protocol development and data collection. CEC was responsible for the data analysis and writing the initial draft of the manuscript. Subsequent drafts were reviewed by all authors listed. All authors had input on reporting of the findings. All authors provided approval for the submitted version of this manuscript.

    • Funding The UppStART study was funded by the EU-FP7 Health program (IDEAL, agreement 259679), the Swedish Research Council (K2011-69X-21871-01-6 and SIMSAM 340-2013-5867) and the Strategic Research Program in Epidemiology Young Scholar Awards, Karolinska Institutet.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval The UppStART study has been approved by the regional ethics review board at Karolinska Institutet (Dnr 2011/230-31/1, 2011/1427-32, 2012/131-32, 2012/792-32, 2013/1700-32, 2014/1956-32, 2015/1604-32).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement Data are available upon reasonable request.