2 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
The potentially damaging effect of free O2 radicals to cultured embryos may be reduced by adding scavengers to the culture media or by reducing the incubator O2 levels. However, lowering the O2 in the culture environment can be expensive, troublesome and may not be justifiable. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of lowered incubator O2 tension on live birth rates in a predominately day-5 embryo transfer program. The hypothesis of this study is that a lowered (more physiological)oxygen concentration in embryo culture incubators will increase live birth rates for in vitro fertilization patients. 230 first-cycle women undergoing routine IVF or ICSI with ejaculated sperm will be randomized in a prospective clinical trial and stratified for patient age and physician. Embryos of patients will be randomly assigned for culture in either a 21% O2 (atmospheric) or 5% O2 (reduced) environment. Clinical endpoints monitored will be rates of implantation, clinical pregnancy, live birth and blastocyst cryopreservation.
Human conception in vivo occurs in a complex milieu that includes proteins. It has been speculated that the addition of proteins more complex than human serum albumin to culture media may improve IVF outcomes. Whether the expense, labor and risk of adding additional human-derived protein to IVF media are warranted is a question unanswered. Patients, undergoing routine IVF or ICSI, will be assigned to one of two treatment groups in a randomized, prospective clinical trial . Embryos will be cultured in either media supplemented with human serum albumin (HSA) as a solitary protein supplement or in media supplemented with HSA + SSS from the 2-PN stage until the time of embryo transfer. Clinical endpoints monitored will be implantation rate, clinical pregnancy rate and live birth rate. It is expected that the supplementation of commercial embryo culture media containing HSA with the more complex protein source, SSS, will result in an overall increase in implantation, clinical pregnancy, and live birth rates. In the balance, protein enrichment of media may represent opportunities to simultaneously increase the live birth rate and reduce the incidence of multiple gestations.