Viability of frozen-thawed human embryos with one-two blastomeres lysis

To assess the impact of one-two blastomeres lysis on the viability of thawed day 3 human embryos.

A retrospective analysis was performed on 248 frozen-thawed embryo replacement cycles in which all embryos were frozen at day 3 at the seven-eight cell stage with

Outcomes of transfer cycles with fully intact embryos (intact group) were compared with those in which all transferred embryos have lost one-two blastomeres (damage group). Comparable pregnancy rates (38.46% vs 38.64%), birth rates (34.62% vs 36.36%) and implantation rates (26.31% vs 26.25%) were obtained in intact and damage groups. These results were also not significantly different from mixed transfer cycles in which one intact embryo and one damaged embryo were transferred together.

The developmental potential of partially damaged cryopreserved human embryos with less than 25% cells loss is comparable to that of fully intact embryos. Presence of one-two lysed blastomeres in the thawed day 3 embryo does not appear to have a negative influence on the further development of the sibling intact cells.