Laser assisted zona hatching does not improve live birth rate in patients undergoing their first ICSI cycles

Routine use of assisted hatching (AH) following ICSI is a controversial issue in the literature. There are rare studies regarding the effect of laser assisted hatching (LAH) on live birth rate.

Our main goal was to evaluate the effect of LAH on delivery rate as well as congenital anomaly in patients undergoing their first ICSI cycle.

A total of 182 patients subjected to ICSI were randomly aliquot into two groups of experiment and control. In experiment group, the embryos were subjected to LAH to open a hole in ZP (about 10-12 µm) while in control group, the transferred embryos were intact with no AH. The patients were followed for clinical pregnancy and delivery rate as well as congenital anomaly. All the patients were infertile due to male factor infertility and LAH and embryo transfer were done on day 2.

Laboratory and clinical characteristics of two groups of experiment and control were the same. There were insignificant differences between two groups of experiment and control for clinical pregnancy rate (20% vs. 23.9%, respectively, p=0.3) and live birth rate (11.11% vs. 8.6%, respectively, p=0.6). Also no significant differences were observed between two groups of experiment and control for multiple pregnancy as well as congenital anomaly.

Routine use of LAH in first ICSI cycle for male factor patients may have no beneficial effects on clinical pregnancy and live birth rate.