ASSESSMENT OF THE EMBRYO QUALITY IN THE PROCEDURE OF IN VITRO FERTILIZATION

Area of Science:

• Reproductive Medicine
• Embryology

Background:

• Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) aim to increase pregnancy success but often involve transferring multiple embryos.
• This increases the risk of multiple pregnancies, posing significant health risks to both mother and child.
• Elective single-embryo transfer (eSET) is essential to mitigate these risks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review methods for assessing embryo quality.
• To highlight the importance of embryo selection for successful eSET.

Main Methods:

• Non-invasive methods: morphological assessment, proteomic and metabolomic analysis, time-lapse imaging.
• Invasive methods: preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and preimplantation genetic screening (PGS).

Main Results:

• Various techniques exist for evaluating embryo quality, ranging from simple observation to complex genetic analysis.
• Time-lapse imaging offers detailed monitoring of embryo development kinetics.
• Both PGD and PGS are invasive methods used to select embryos for transfer.

Conclusions:

• The successful implementation of eSET relies on accurate embryo quality assessment.
• Methods for embryo selection have advanced significantly over the past four decades.
• Further improvements in these assessment techniques are necessary to optimize ART outcomes.