Early transfer may offset IVF problems in some.(in vitro fertilization)(Clinical report)

COPENHAGEN -- Early embryo transfer on the first day after fertilization may remedy certain in vitro fertilization failures due to poor embryo quality, researchers reported in a poster presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

A subset of patients with good ovarian stimulation, egg quality, and fertilization have embryos that stop developing or exhibit extended fragmentation by their second day in culture, said Olia Anastasiou of the Laboratoire de VIF et de Biologie de la Reproduction at Hopital Tenon in Paris.

"We have patients like this, most of whom have had three trials of [in vitro fertilization] with really bad quality embryos. It's been a real question mark what to do for them," she said in an interview.

Prolonging embryo culture to the blastocyst stage (day 5) for such patients is a risk that usually results in no surviving embryos to transfer, she explained.

Her team's hypothesis was that certain maternal proteins, which are normally responsible for preimplantation embryo development, were deficient in these patients, making their embryos unable to survive the culture conditions in vitro.

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