Correlation Between Oocyte and Embryo Mechanical Properties on Embryo Development and Clinical Pregnancy After In Vitro Fertilization (EMECH)

Stanford University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Infertility; Pregnancy, Multiple

Treatments: Procedure: EmbryoHug

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02530892

31948

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to determine whether oocyte and embryo mechanical properties measured during in vitro fertilization can predict embryo development outcomes and clinical pregnancy.

Full description

In the current practice of in vitro fertilization (IVF), clinicians often transfer multiple embryos to the patient at once in an effort to maximize chances of pregnancy. This practice results in a high rate of multiple births which increase the risks of complications for mothers and children.

The investigators in this study have developed a novel, noninvasive marker of embryo viability which is based on measuring embryo mechanical properties at the oocyte or the 1-cell stage. The investigators would like to test whether human oocyte or embryo mechanical properties are predictive of subsequent development, clinical pregnancy, and compare their predictive power to that of a morphological assessment (the current gold standard). Using this approach, clinicians could more confidently move toward single embryo transfer, provided more individualized counseling for patients undergoing oocyte cryopreservation, as well as improve pregnancy rates after IVF.

This is a pilot observational study. Although investigators will measure the mechanical properties of all participant oocytes and embryos, no prediction of embryo viability will be made, and there will be no intervention in choosing which embryos to transfer to participants. The data from this study will eventually be used to find a range of oocyte and embryo mechanical parameters which are predictive of high developmental potential, and will serve as the basis for an interventional study in the future.

Enrollment: 119 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 21 to 45 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Between the ages of 21 and 45
• Undergoing intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) at Stanford Fertility, Shenzhen IVF clinic, or Taiwan IVF group between August 2015 and August 2018

Exclusion criteria

• Using gestational carrier or donor eggs
• Using cryopreserved eggs
• Fewer than 5 oocytes collected

Trial design

119 participants in 1 patient group

Measurement Group

Description:

This group contains oocytes and embryos which have their mechanical properties (elasticity and viscosity) measured prior to fertilization (oocytes) or within 24 hours after fertilization (embryos). The investigators are calling this mechanical measurement the "EmbryoHug." All participants in the study will have half their embryos measured in this group. Outcomes will be evaluated after 6 days of embryo culture, at the time of pregnancy test, at 5-6 weeks, and at 8-10 weeks, and correlated with EmbryoHug parameters.

Treatment:

Procedure: EmbryoHug