Elsevier

Fertility and Sterility

Volume 104, Issue 5, November 2015, Pages 1175-1181.e2
Fertility and Sterility

Original article
Influence of different oocyte insemination techniques on early and late morphokinetic parameters: retrospective analysis of 500 time-lapse monitored blastocysts

Presented as an oral presentation at the 31st Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, Lisbon, Portugal, June 14–17, 2015.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2015.07.1164Get rights and content
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Objective

To determine how standard IVF vs. intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) fertilization influences early and late morphokinetic parameters during prolonged embryo culture.

Design

Five-hundred expanded blastocysts that were monitored in a time-lapse monitoring incubator were analysed retrospectively. Early (pronuclear fading [PNf], t2–t9) and late (start of blastulation, expanded blastocyst) morphokinetic variables were scored according to published consensus criteria.

Setting

Private infertility clinic.

Patient(s)

A total of 209 consecutive infertile patients (mean ± SD age, 38.4 ± 4 years; range, 28–47 years) undergoing 238 natural IVF/minimal ovarian stimulation cycles during 2012–2014.

Intervention(s)

Minimal ovarian stimulation, oocyte retrieval, fertilization with standard IVF or ICSI, prolonged embryo culture in a time-lapse monitoring incubator.

Main Outcome Measure(s)

Differences in morphokinetic parameters according to insemination techniques.

Result(s)

In total, 29% and 71% of the whole cohort was fertilized with standard IVF and ICSI, respectively. During early cleavage stages (PNf to t4) there was a statistically significant delay (+1.5 to +1.1 hours) among IVF-fertilized embryos. By contrast, at the expanded blastocyst stage IVF-fertilized embryos showed faster development (−3.3 to −4.1 hours). After normalizing to the time point of PNf, differences in cleavage-stage parameters disappeared, but those at all blastocyst stages increased even further in favor of IVF-fertilized embryos (−3.2 to −5.7 hours).

Conclusion(s)

The observed 1.5-hour time difference between standard IVF- and ICSI-fertilized embryos is an artificial phenomenon. At the blastocyst stages, however, genuine timing differences arise between IVF- and ICSI-fertilized embryos, possibly related to their different quality. Normalization to a common time point permits the joint analysis of IVF- and ICSI-fertilized embryos, thus increasing the size of studied cohorts.

Key Words

Time-lapse monitoring
blastocyst culture
ICSI
single-embryo transfer
in vitro fertilization

Cited by (0)

D.B. has nothing to disclose. T.S. has nothing to disclose. J.Y.S. has nothing to disclose. M.K. has nothing to disclose. R.K. has nothing to disclose. S.K. has nothing to disclose. T.M. has nothing to disclose.