Abstract
Objective:To predict the reproductive potential of embryos via Raman spectroscopy evaluation of the spent culture media as well as with a conventional morphologic evaluation.Materials and Methods:Women of reproductive age (n=31) who were treated for unexplained infertility and scheduled for single embryo transfer were invited to participate in this prospective study. After the embryos were removed from the culture, the spent culture media were stored at -80 °C after snap-freezing in liquid nitrogen.Results:Fifteen patients were clinically pregnant, and 16 patients were clinically non-pregnant. Clinical pregnancy was predicted using Raman spectroscopy in 93% (14/15) of clinically pregnant patients, and in 62.5% (10 out of 16) of clinically non-pregnant patients. The sensitivity of the Raman spectroscopic analysis was 93% and the specificity was 62.5%.Conclusion:Metabolomic evaluation of spent embryo culture media is an emerging technique with promising objective results. However, there is clearly room for improvement.
Highlights
The identification of embryos with the highest potential to implant and establish ongoing pregnancy is the primary aim in human-assisted reproduction
The accuracy of Principal component analysis (PCA)-quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA) analysis was tested with an additional Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis
The present study identified that adding Raman spectroscopic analysis of spent embryo culture media revealed that this approach may predict clinical pregnancy as an adjunct to morphologic evaluation
Summary
The identification of embryos with the highest potential to implant and establish ongoing pregnancy is the primary aim in human-assisted reproduction. This task is undertaken every day by embryologists worldwide during the treatment of couples that wish to conceive through in vitro fertilization (IVF). In the first era of IVF, there was a number of studies that evaluated this parameter and associated morphology with IVF success rates. Some researchers stated that the slight increase in pregnancy rates during IVF treatment was most likely a result of better practice in the laboratory than morphologic evaluation[3]. We hypothesized that adding Raman spectroscopy to morphologic evaluation would predict better results than those of conventional morphologic evaluation alone
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