BACKGROUND Advances in cell culture media have led to a shift in in vitro fertilisation (IVF) practice from cleavage stage embryo transfer to blastocyst stage transfer. The rationale for blastocyst transfer is to improve both uterine and embryonic synchronicity and enable self selection of viable embryos, thus resulting in better live birth rates. OBJECTIVES To determine whether blastocyst st...

BACKGROUND Both cleavage-stage and blastocyst-stage embryo transfer policies have advantages and drawbacks. The number of embryos transferred, however, is a crucial parameter that needs to be considered before attempting any comparison. METHODS An extensive literature search yielded initially 282 studies from which 8 randomized controlled trials met the inclusion criteria: (i) truly randomize...

Background: The beneficial effect of supplementing culture medium with melatonin has been reported during in vitro embryo development of species such as mouse, bovine and porcine. However, the effect of melatonin on the mouse somatic cell nuclear transfer remained unknown. Materials and Methods: In this study, we assessed the effects of various concentrations of melatonin (10-6 to 10-12 M) on t...

BACKGROUND Advances in embryo culture technology and cryopreservation have led to a shift in in vitro fertilization (IVF) from early fresh or frozen-thawed cleavage embryo transfer to fresh or frozen-thawed blastocyst stage transfer. OBJECTIVE To compare the clinical outcomes of fresh embryo transfers and frozen-thawed embryo transfers. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this retrospective case contr...

This article aims to report successful live births after transfer of fresh blastocyst or vitrified/warmed blastocyst derived from intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) on day-1 of unfertilized mature eggs (so-called "rescue ICSI") with spindle examination using polarized light microscopy. Two couples who had rescue ICSI performed achieved a positive pregnancy result after the transfer of a fr...

OBJECTIVE To document the risk of in vitro monochorionic dizygotic twin formation in the implementation of a program of blastocyst biopsy with preimplantation genetic screening (PGS). DESIGN Case report. SETTING Private infertility laboratory. PATIENT(S) Prospective PGS patients with intracytoplasmic sperm injection-derived, group-cultured blastocysts over a 3-year period. INTERVENTION(...