Misc reading: Incubator-cum-Microscopic Imaging System for Round-the-clock Monitoring of the Growing Embryo

I have read about time-lapse imaging system for IVF in UK and I have only just realised that my hospital has one too since last year! Let's hope it does its wonder for me....

Alot of IVF patient kept going around forum asking for "doctors" that has the a high success rate. Personally, while the doctor is important in gauging the medication dosage etc, I think the lab tech is more important...afterall, they are the ones doing the mother hen job of monitoring the status and doing the mix to cultivate your eggs!

Anycase, a light read for those interested.

Incubator-cum-Microscopic Imaging System for Round-the-clock Monitoring of the 
Growing Embryo

“Every time you take an embryo out of a standard incubator you are disturbing them from the
cultured environment with optimal gas and temperature conditions. Now with the
EmbryoScope, which is an incubator as well as an imaging system, an image of the embryo
is taken every 20 minutes automatically by the built-in camera to provide abundant
information in a non-invasive way,” said Dr. Milton Leong, Director of IVF Centre of HKSH.

“The time-lapse imaging system is a great help to enable continuous assessment of
embryonic development and better selection of embryos for implantation.” The
EmbryoScope allows incubation of up to 72 individual embryos in six sterile disposable
slides each with a capacity of 12 embryos.

Over 3,000 images for Better Evaluation and Identification of Embryos
Embryonic development is dynamic. Snapshots once a day using the traditional method
could only provide limited information for selecting embryos. Every doubling time has a
meaning. There are various parameters in selecting the embryos for implantation, such as
timing and synchrony of cell division, cell morphology by detailed observation of the nuclei
of cells, the dimensions of ensuing daughter cell, etc.

 “Let me take a recent patient case as an example. An embryo did not cleave on Day 1 and was divided into a 6-cell embryo in Day 2. If monitored once a day, the 6-cell embryo could be considered morphologically normal. However, when we played back the recording, the embryo had no sign of cleaving in the first 3 30 hours. At the 40-hour timestamp, the embryo was divided into a 3-cell embryo and in a couple of minutes split into 6 cells. Such cell division process was beyond the normal range of embryonic development and the embryo was not suitable for implantation,” Dr. Leong explained.

Now EmbryoScope provides a time-lapse recording of the growing embryos, where images
of each embryo are automatically recorded at preset time intervals which records up to 3,500
images per embryo during culture. The extra information from the EmbryoScope enables the
identification of the best embryos with greater confidence. It also allows collective review
and decision among doctors and embryologists in the selection process.

Taking Fertility Treatment into the Future 

HKSH’s IVF Centre oversees 2,000 cycles a year, in which 500-700 are Frozen Embryo
Transfer (FET). Since July, the embryos of 86 couples have been cultured in EmbryoScope,
and 39 pregnancies have been achieved. The rate is about 45.3 %, which is slightly better as
compared to our Centre having achieved an average of 39% in the last 4 years using the
standard traditional method.

“There are reports of increased pregnancy success rates with the use of EmbryoScope, but
the impact of using EmbryoScope on pregnancy rate is yet to be conclusive. At any rate, this
innovative technology is valuable as the springboard for the next leap in fertility treatment,”
remarked Dr. Leong. “We now have access to a big database of results from over 100 centres
all over the world that use the EmbryoScope. With the bulk of information about embryonic
development, training and research will be further enabled to explore the correlations of
certain characteristics of embryonic development and better success rates.”