Whether Using Sequential pH Would Improve Human Blastocyst Formation

Ibn Sina Hospital

Status: Completed

Conditions: Infertility

Treatments: Other: pH Effect on blastocyst formation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03641014

IbnSina-Sequential pH

Details and patient eligibility

About

Any drift in extracellular pH (pHe) from the intercellular pH (pHi) could alter the mechanism regulating transporters and exchangers through the plasma membrane. This could lead to difficulty in restoring the physiological level of pHi. The critical stages that lack robust mechanism of regulating the pHi are the denuded oocyte, early stage of fertilization or a thawed embryo. This, in turn, could lead to a significant effect of the perturbations on embryo development. Convincing evidence regarding the optimal pHe for culturing human embryo is, so far, scanty and mostly anecdotal. The embryo has been reported to have a compensatory mechanism to grow at pHe between 7.0-7.4. Others have recommended that embryo need a sequential pH to viably grow suggesting that the post-genomic activation stage needs a slightly alkaline range of pH. However, whether this holds true remains to be examined.

Enrollment: 1,312 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18 to 40 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• ICSI cycles

Exclusion criteria

• No exclusion

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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1,312 participants in 2 patient groups

Sequential pH culture (7.23 then 7.35)

Experimental group

Description:

A split embryo at day 3 to continue culture at a pHe of 7.23±0.02 or to be cultured at a pH of 7.35±0.02 and monitor the effect on blastocyst development.

Treatment:

Other: pH Effect on blastocyst formation

Continuously pH culture at 7.23

No Intervention group

Description:

Embryo culture from day 0 to 5 or 6 at 7.23