Pacific Fertility Center

To investigate if differences in self-reported satisfaction with fertility clinics and doctors differ by race/ethnicity. We used cross-sectional survey data from FertilityIQ online questionnaires completed by patients receiving US. fertility care from July 2015 to December 2020. Univariate and multivariate logistic and linear regression analyses were performed to assess association of race/ethnicity on patient-reported clinic and physician satisfaction. Our total sample size included 21,472 unique survey responses (15,986 Caucasian, 1856 Black, 1780 LatinX, 771 East Asian, 619 South Asian, 273 Middle Eastern, 187 Native American self-reported). When adjusting for potential confounders (demographic and patient satisfaction), we found that Black patients rated their doctors more highly (odds ratio (OR) 1.30, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.04-1.62 p = 0.022 logistic and Coefficient 0.082, 95% CI 0.013-0.15 p = 0.02 linear), while other ethnic groups did not show significant differences compared to Caucasian patients. East Asians had borderline lower satisfaction with clinic satisfaction in logistic regression (OR 0.74 95% CI 0.55-1.00 p = 0.05), while significant differences were not found for other ethnic groups for clinic satisfaction. In summary, some but not all minority groups differed in their self-reported perception of satisfaction with fertility clinic and doctors compared to Caucasian patients. Cultural differences towards surveys may contribute to some of these findings, and satisfaction by racial/ethnic group may also be modified by results of care.

Gangliosides are sialic acid-containing glycosphingolipids, which are the most abundant family of glycolipids in eukaryotes. Gangliosides have been suggested to be important lipid molecules required for the control of cellular procedures, such as cell differentiation, proliferation, and signaling. GD1a is expressed in interstitial cells during ovarian maturation in mice and exogenous GD1a is important to oocyte maturation, monospermic fertilization, and embryonic development. In this context, GM1 is known to influence signaling pathways in cells and is important in sperm–oocyte interactions and sperm maturation processes, such as capacitation. GM3 is expressed in the vertebrate oocyte cytoplasm, and exogenously added GM3 induces apoptosis and DNA injury during in vitro oocyte maturation and embryogenesis. As a consequence of this, ganglioside GT1b and GM1 decrease DNA fragmentation and act as H2O2 inhibitors on germ cells and preimplantation embryos. This review describes the functional roles of gangliosides in spermatozoa, oocytes, and early embryonic development.