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Updated: May 19, 2026
Single Cell Collection of Trophoblast Cells in Peri-implantation Stage Human Embryos
Published on: June 12, 2020
Limited implantation success of direct-cleaved human zygotes: a time-lapse study
Irene Rubio1, Reidun Kuhlmann, Inge Agerholm
1Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad Valencia, Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
Objective:
To evaluate embryos with direct cleavage (≤5 hours) from two to three cells (DC2-3) and correlate this morphokinetic parameter to implantation and ongoing pregnancy.
Design:
Clinical multicenter retrospective study.
Setting:
Private in vitro fertilization (IVF) centers.
Patient(S):
From three clinics, a total of 979 treatments including 5,225 embryos using autologous or donated oocytes, of which 1,659 embryos were transferred.
Intervention(S):
None.
Main Outcome Measure(S):
Clinical pregnancy confirmed by ultrasound in week 7.
Result(S):
Of the total embryo cohort, 715 (13.7%) underwent direct cleavage from two to three cells, 1,659 embryos were transferred to recipients, and 109 of the transferred embryos cleaved directly from two to three cells (6.6%). Only one DC2-3 embryo was known to result in a clinical pregnancy (1%) and 80 (73.4%) DC2-3 embryos did not implant. Of the 1,550 embryos transferred not showing DC2-3, 203 embryos were from treatments with 100% implantation (13.1%), and 804 (51.8%) embryos did not implant. The known implantation rate of DC2-3 embryos was statistically significantly lower than for embryos with a normal cleavage pattern (1.2% vs. 20.2%, respectively).
Conclusion(S):
Embryos with DC2-3 had a statistically significantly lower implantation rate than embryos with a normal cleavage pattern, suggesting that rejection of these embryos for transfer could improve the implantation rate.
