Embryo culture using a time-lapse monitoring system improves live birth rates compared with a conventional culture system: a prospective cohort study

Abstract

In this prospective cohort study, the effects of a time-lapse monitoring system on embryo quality and clinical pregnancy outcomes were assessed. A total of 608 patients undergoing in vitro fertilization between April 2013 and June 2014 at our institution were recruited for this study and group-matched into a time-lapse monitoring (TLM) (N = 304) or a standard incubator (SI) (N = 304). The patients' characteristics in the TLM and SI groups were not significantly different. The TLM group showed a significantly higher transferable embryo ratio at Day 3 (61.65% vs. 52.87%; p < 0.0010, RR =1.10 [1.02, 1.19]), a higher number of transferable embryos (4.71 ± 2.38 vs. 4.09 ± 2.35; p = 0.0053, SMD =0.26 [0.06, 0.46]) and number of good-quality embryos cryopreserved at Day 3 (2.72 ± 2.35 vs. 2.11 ± 2.33; p = 0.0056, SMD =0.26 [0.06, 0.46]). In addition, the implantation and clinical pregnancy rates were not statistically significant between the TLM and SI groups. However, the TLM group had a higher ongoing pregnancy rate (67.32% vs. 57.22%; p = 0.0410) and live birth rate (65.37% vs. 55%; p = 0.0380) compared with the SI group. The observed beneficial effects could be the result of a more stable environment provided by the TLM system.

Peer Review #1 of "Comparing transcriptome profiles of human embryo cultured in closed and standard incubators (v0.1)"

“…Furthermore, since TLI can assess embryos without removing them, embryos are not exposed to changes in temperature, humidity, light, gas concentrations, and pH, which can impair embryonic development (Fujiwara et al 2007;Zhang et al 2010). However, few studies have compared the performances of TLI culture systems to standard incubators (SI) (Alhelou et al 2018; Barberet et al 2018;Sciorio et al 2018;Wu et al 2017). Our previous study showed that TLI had a higher transferable embryo ratio than the SI group on Day 3 (Wu et al 2017), which was consistent with other studies (Alhelou et al 2018;Barberet et al 2018;Sciorio et al 2018).…”

IMSI procedure improves clinical outcomes and embryo morphokinetics in patients with different aetiologies of male infertility

“…It also runs morphological, dynamic and morphokinetic parameters. These factors can be used to estimate embryo viability and implantation potential (Coticchio et al, ; Kim et al, ; Wu et al, ).…”

Comparison of clinical outcome of frozen embryo transfer after embryo selection based on morphokinetic versus morphologic criteria for freezing

“…Wu et al analyzed a total of 608 patients, which was divided into two equal groups (time-lapse and standard incubator culture system) with 304 patients in each group. They found that the ongoing pregnancy rate and the live birth rate in time-lapse group were higher than that of the standard incubator culture system 16 . Siristatidis showed in a study population (of 239 women) that the women were classified into two groups: time-lapse and conventional monitoring.…”

“…There was no statistically significant difference between two groups in clinical pregnancy and implantation rates 13 . Some studies only analyzed cleavage embryo selection in order to compare the effectiveness of morphokinetic versus morphologic criteria in embryo selection 9,16,43 . Wu et al analyzed a total of 608 patients, which was divided into two equal groups (time-lapse and standard incubator culture system) with 304 patients in each group.…”

“…Frozen embryo transfer has become increasingly popular worldwide. Nevertheless, most of the published studies have mainly analyzed morphokinetic data in embryo selection in fresh embryo transfer cycles 13,[16][17][18] . Therefore, it was necessary to verify the effectiveness of the morphokinetic criteria in embryo selection for freezing at our center.…”