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Human Fertility
an international, multidisciplinary journal dedicated to furthering research and promoting good practice
Volume 25, 2022 - Issue 1
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Original Articles

Live birth rate following undisturbed embryo culture at low oxygen in a time-lapse incubator compared to a high-quality benchtop incubator

ORCID Icon, , , &
Pages 147-153 | Received 25 Sep 2019, Accepted 11 Dec 2019, Published online: 26 Feb 2020
 

Abstract

Time-lapse (TL) incubators are increasingly used in in vitro fertilization (IVF) laboratories but there have been few studies of their effectiveness in comparison to other incubator types. Moreover, the design of most studies has been limited by the quality of the control incubator. We have therefore performed a one-year pseudo-randomized prospective study of IVF cycles using a TL incubator (EmbryoScope™) (n = 243) or a conventional incubator (K-System G-185 Flatbed) (n = 203). The two groups were well matched in terms of clinical parameters: IVF cycle attempt number, IVF/ICSI, age, number and day (3 or 5) of embryo transfer. Embryos were selected for transfer using conventional (non-TL) morphological grading. The EmbryoScope group had an increased chance of a live birth (43.2% vs. 34.5%; OR = 1.43 [95%CI: 0.96–2.13]) with significantly reduced early pregnancy loss (5.8% vs. 13.8%; OR = 0.37 [0.19–0.74]) compared to the K-System incubator. There was a higher proportion of 4-cell embryos on day 2 and 8-cell embryos on day 3 in the EmbryoScope, compared to the K-Systems. The use of TL incubators is appropriate in ART by virtue of their high specification, facility for low oxygen culture and provision of minimally disturbed culture conditions which limit exposure of human embryos to environmental stress.

Acknowledgements

The EmbryoScope used in the study was provided on loan by Unisense FertiliTech.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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