NOEL: Endometrium after Lipiodol
Research type
Research Study
Full title
NOEL: NOvel insights into the Endometrial extracellular vesicles during the window of implantation after Lipiodol
IRAS ID
314498
Contact name
Ying Cheong
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL SOUTHAMPTON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 31 days
Research summary
One in six couples in the UK are undergoing investigations for subfertility. These investigations include ascertaining the patency of the woman’s fallopian tubes, this can be done by hysterosalpingography (HSG). Interestingly, previous research has demonstrated an increase in spontaneous conception rates in the months following the investigation (Cundiff, Carr et al. 1995). A HSG can be performed with either an oil or water based contrast. A recent large randomised controlled trial (Dreyer, van Rijswijk et al. 2017) and subsequent meta-analysis (Fang, Bai et al. 2018) have demonstrated significantly higher ongoing pregnancy rates with oil based contrast compared to water based.
Lipiodol is an ethiodized oil injection, and is used as a radio-opaque contrast agent during HSGs. It contains iodine organically combined with ethyl esters of fatty acids of poppy seed oils, mainly polyunsaturated fatty acids. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are considered to be necessary components of cell membranes and play a key role in many cell processes, including that of the endometrium (Qin, Yang et al. 2020).For successful pregnancy in humans and livestock, the endometrium must create the optimal receptive environment for the implanting embryo. It is plausible that PUFA exerts an impact on the endometrium by its modulation of extracellular vesicles (ECVs) (Holopainen, Colas et al. 2019).
In this study, we propose to investigate the impact of Lipiodol on the endometrial ECV during the window of implantation, in a comparative study in women with subfertility before and after Lipiodol HSG. We propose to characterise the ECVs pre and post Lipiodol usage, and further interrogate the effect of Lipiodol in our ex-vivo models using endometrial tissue cultures, utilising our already established multi-step, multi-model platform to assess the effect of Lipiodol, in its components 1) Lipiodol, 2) iodine and in 3) controls on endometrial tissue using RNAseq and microRNA seq.
REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
22/NI/0145
Date of REC Opinion
10 Nov 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion