background: embryo morphology has been proposed as an alternative marker of chromosomal status. the objective of this retrospective cohort study was to investigate the association between the chromosomal status on day 3 of embryo development and blastocyst morphology.embryo morphology has been proposed as an alternative marker of chromosomal status. the objective of this retrospective cohort st...

the society for assisted reproductive technology (sart) method of embryo grading is unique, simple, and widely practiced, and its use has been mandatory for sart membership programs since 2010. developed by sart in 2006, the current embryo grading system categories, “good, fair, and poor,” are limited because they do not describe the best 1-2 embryos in the interest of keeping pace with the shi...

Background: The cause of fertilization failure in IVF is most often due to the absence of sperm penetration but the reason why fertilization does not occur when intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is applied is not clear. However some intrinsic oocyte problems may also be responsible for fertilization failure. It has been reported that 13% of unfertilized oocytes after IVF show morphologica...

OBJECTIVE During IVF, non-transferred embryos are usually selected for cryopreservation on the basis of morphological criteria. This investigation evaluated an application for array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) in assessment of surplus embryos prior to cryopreservation. METHODS First-time IVF patients undergoing elective single embryo transfer and having at least one extra non-tra...

The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) method of embryo grading is unique, simple, and widely practiced, and its use has been mandatory for SART membership programs since 2010. Developed by SART in 2006, the current embryo grading system categories, “good, fair, and poor,” are limited because they do not describe the best 1-2 embryos in the interest of keeping pace with the shi...

Porcine embryo selection prior to transfer is mainly influenced by morphological criteria. However, the relationship between embryonic morphology, developmental potential and cell death by apoptosis in porcine embryos is still unclear. The aim of this study was to establish embryo quality parameters for in vivo fertilised porcine embryos based on timing of development in vitro, embryo morpholog...

In this issue, Fragouli et al. report the results obtainedbyexamining a total of 1213 embryos by combining comprehensive chromosome analysis with a systematic assessment of embryo morphology. At the cleavage stage, chromosome abnormalities were common even amongst embryos assigned the best morphological scores, indicating that aneuploidy has little effect on microscopic appearance during the fi...

OBJECTIVE To relate the gene expression in cumulus cells surrounding an oocyte to the potential of the oocyte, as evaluated by the embryo morphology (days 3 and 5) and pregnancy obtained in single-embryo transfer cycles. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of individual human cumulus complexes using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction for 11 genes. SETTING University hospital IVF cen...