Impact of Time-Lapse Incubator Systems on Fertilization, Blastocyst Development, and Clinical Pregnancy Outcomes

The use of the time-lapse (TL) technology in infertility treatment centers has expanded, and the findings indicate its positive effect on embryo development, selection and increased pregnancy success rates. The purpose of the current study was to compare TL culture system and conventional incubator (CI) on IVF outcomes.

A total of 4,769 infertile couples undergoing IVF programs were enrolled in the study. The participants were categorized into two groups according to the embryo culture system, with 2,184 patients assigned to TL incubator and 2,585 to CI group. The outcomes measured included fertilization rate, proportion of top-quality embryos on day 3 and 5, and clinical pregnancy rate. Statistical analyses were conducted utilizing the Mann-Whitney U test and chi-square test. A p<0.05 indicated significance.

This study revealed significantly higher fertilization rates and top-quality blastocysts in the TL group in comparison to CI group (p<0.001). Despite these differences, a comparable clinical pregnancy rate was observed between the two culture systems, with rates of 45.7% for TL and 41.1% for CI (p=0.169). These findings remained consistent in the good prognosis group, but not in the poor prognosis group. In the poor prognosis group, the TL culture system significantly improved fertilization rates (p<0.001), while the rates of top-quality cleavage and blastocyst formation were comparable between the two systems (p=0.075).

Based on the findings of the study, time-lapse culture system demonstrated superior performance compared to the conventional incubator system in generating top-quality blastocysts.