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Hum. Reprod. Advance Access published online on April 18, 2008
Human Reproduction, doi:10.1093/humrep/den111
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© The Author 2008. 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

Metabolomic profiling by near-infrared spectroscopy as a tool to assess embryo viability: a novel, non-invasive method for embryo selection

C.G. Vergouw1,4, L.L. Botros2, P. Roos2, J.W. Lens1, R. Schats1, P.G.A. Hompes1, D.H. Burns3 and C.B Lambalk1

1 Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Reproductive Medicine, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2 Molecular Biometrics LLC, Chester, NJ, USA 3 McGill University, Department of Chemistry, Montreal, QC, Canada

4 Correspondence address. VU University Medical Center, department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Reproductive Medicine, PO box 7057, 1007 MB, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Tel: +31-204443229; Fax: +31-204443267; E-mail: carlijn.vergouw{at}vumc.nl

BACKGROUND: The morphology of an embryo has a limited predictive value for assessing viability and ongoing pregnancy, therefore new selection tools are needed to maintain success rates with single-embryo transfer (SET). In this study, we investigated if metabolomic profiling of biomarkers of embryo culture medium by near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has a correlation with ongoing pregnancy in SET.

METHODS: A total of 333 patients scheduled for in vitro fertilization (IVF) with SET were included in the study. Embryos were selected for transfer by morphological criteria on Days 2 and 3 of in vitro culture, and left over culture media samples were analyzed by NIR spectroscopy.

RESULTS: The NIR spectral analysis produced unique metabolomic profiles that correlated to an embryo's reproductive potential. Resulting relative viability scores between positive and negative pregnancy outcomes were statistically significant (P < 0.03). A logistic regression of factors correlated to pregnancy outcomes showed that maternal age, percent fragmentation and relative viability scores all demonstrated a relationship. The extent of the correlation was determined by accuracy computation, where the accuracy of assessing viable embryos on Day 3 by metabolomic profiling was 53.6% and the accuracy of the morphological selection was 38.5%. In addition, the positive predictive value of metabolomic profiling was 0.365 and the negative predictive value was 0.830.

CONCLUSIONS: NIR metabolomic profiling of spent embryo culture media was able to distinguish viable embryos from non-viable embryos for reproduction.

Key words: non-invasive embryo selection/single-embryo transfer (SET)/near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy/metabolomic profiling

Submitted on November 13, 2007; resubmitted on January 31, 2008; accepted on March 13, 2008.


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