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Hum. Reprod. Advance Access published online on February 27, 2004
Human Reproduction, doi:10.1093/humrep/deh177
© 2004 by European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology
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Received September 1, 2003
Revised November 14, 2003
Accepted January 26, 2004

Article

Case report: successful pregnancy after vitrification of a human blastocyst that had completely escaped from the zona pellucida on day 6

Kenichiro Hiraoka 1, Kaori Hiraoka 1, Masayuki Kinutani 1*, and Kazuo Kinutani 1

1 Kinutani Women’s Clinic, 2-1-4-3F, Ohtemachi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima 730-0051, Japan

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mkinu0826{at}aol.com.


  Abstract

This case report describes a successful pregnancy after vitrification of a human hatched blastocyst. A 31-year-old woman, after failed stimulated and thaw cycles, underwent short-treatment protocol stimulation, and oocytes were recovered transvaginally with ultrasound guidance. Eight mature oocytes were obtained and six were fertilized with conventional IVF. Consecutive embryo transfer was performed, in which two cleaved embryos were transferred on day 3 and a single blastocyst was transferred on day 5, but no implantation occurred. On day 6, one of the non-transferred embryos developed into a blastocyst that had completely escaped from the zona pellucida. The zona-free hatched blastocyst was vitrified using a cryotop procedure after artificial shrinkage, which in our clinical experience has proved to be effective for zona-intact blastocysts. Six months after the previous retrieval cycle, the cryopreserved hatched blastocyst survived the warming process and was transferred to the patient’s uterus. Implantation resulted in a healthy pregnancy; the pregnancy is ongoing at 33 weeks. This is the first report of a pregnancy after vitrification of a human blastocyst that had completely escaped from the zona pellucida.

Key words: Key words: artificial shrinkage/cryotop/hatched blastocyst/human/vitrification


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