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Published on: February 28, 2019
The effect of blastomere number on embryo survival upon freezing/thawing
J H Check1, D Horwath, D Summers-Chase
1The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Camden, Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility, Camden, NJ, USA. laurie@ccivf.com
Purpose:
To determine if the blastomere number of embryos at the time of freezing is related to its quality post-thaw.
Methods:
A retrospective cohort analysis of frozen/thawed embryos. Only multi-cell embryos were used for this study. If an embryo was of good quality it would either be transferred or re-frozen.
Results:
There did not appear to be any trend for a lower percentage of good quality embryos with fewer numbers of blastomeres.
Conclusions:
Though 4-cell embryos have a markedly lower implantation potential upon fresh embryo transfer compared to 6-8-cell embryos, this is not reflected in their ability to survive freeze-thawing.
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