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Hum. Reprod. Advance Access published online on August 26, 2006
Human Reproduction, doi:10.1093/humrep/del285
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Received March 30, 2006
Revised June 13, 2006
Accepted June 23, 2006

Article

Artificial shrinkage of blastocoeles using either a micro-needle or a laser pulse prior to the cooling steps of vitrification improves survival rate and pregnancy outcome of vitrified human blastocysts

T. Mukaida 1 *, C. Oka 2, T. Goto 2, and K. Takahashi 1

1 Hiroshima HART Clinic, Naka-ku, Hiroshima, Japan
2 Tokyo HART Clinic, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
T. Mukaida, E-mail: info{at}hiroshima-hart.jp


  Abstract

BACKGROUND: Since we reported the first successful birth from a blastocyst vitrified using a cryoloop technique, our results showed that the survival rate of vitrified blastocysts was negatively correlated with the expansion of the blastocoele. We speculated that a large blastocoele may disturb the efficacy of vitrification. Therefore, we evaluated the effectiveness of artificial shrinkage (AS) of blastocoeles before vitrification, on increasing the survival rate of vitrified blastocysts. METHODS: Supernumerary expanded blastocysts on day 5 were vitrified after AS, which was performed by puncturing the blastocoele with a micro-needle, or by making a hole in the blastocoele with a laser pulse. After warming, viable blastocysts (confirmed by re-expansion of the blastocoele) were transferred to patients with hormone replacement cycle. We compared these data with those of our previous report where AS was not carried out. RESULTS: The survival rate was significantly higher (97.2%, 488/502) in this study than that of the previous report (86%). After 266 transferable cycles, 160 patients became pregnant (60.2%), which was significantly higher than our previous results (34.1%, 29/85). The implantation rate was 46.7% (209/448). CONCLUSIONS: Our results revealed that the survival rate and the pregnancy rate of vitrified expanded and hatching blastocysts can be improved by using AS to collapse the blastocele before vitrification.

Keywords: artificial shrinkage/blastocoele/cryoloop/human blastocyst/vitrification.
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U.-B. Wennerholm, V. Soderstrom-Anttila, C. Bergh, K. Aittomaki, J. Hazekamp, K.-G. Nygren, A. Selbing, and A. Loft
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Hum. Reprod., September 1, 2009; 24(9): 2158 - 2172.
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