Evaluation of Group Culture in WOW Dishes of Human Embryos in Order to Optimize the Single Embryo Transfer (SET) Strategy. (WOW)

Multicentric Clinical Trial to Improve Blastocyst Utilisation Rate (in Relation to 2 PN Embryos) by Group Culture of Human Embryos in WOW Dishes.

In cattle less than 10% of the embryos develop to the blastocyst stage when embryos are cultured individually, however when bovine embryos are cultured in groups a typical 25-35% of blastocysts can be observed. This tendency, i.e. improved embryo development in group culture, has also been demonstrated in other mammalian species, such as mouse, cat and human. The main reason for this beneficial outcome of group culture has been ascribed to the presence of autocrine factors, which are factors secreted by preimplantation embryos that act upon the embryo itself or the neighboring embryos .

Although group culture systems are common in in vitro production systems for animal embryos, it is rarely done in human settings, where individual follow-up of the embryo during the whole culture period is of utmost importance. Recently a CE-labelled culture device has been designed for human embryos, that allow to combine the benefits of both group culture approaches and individual culture. The WOW dish is commercially available by Primo Vision and consists of 9 small microwells on the bottom of the plate, so that the embryos can be cultivated individually in a microwell, but covered by the same drop of culture medium.

In this clinical randomized trial, 158 patients will be included of which half of the fertilized oocytes will be cultured individually (standard culture system) and half of the fertilized oocytes will be cultured in group in a WOW dish, both during five days of culture. The aim of this study is to increase the number of blastocysts suitable for transfer or cryopreservation by culturing the embryos in WOW dishes.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Fertility
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: control group; Device: Primo Vision embryo culture dish (CE labeled, Vitrolife)

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 158
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Belgium
  • Edegem, Belgium, 2650
    • Antwerp University Hospital, Centre for Reproductive Medicine
  • Ghent, Belgium, 9000
    • Ghent University Hospital

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 40 years (ADULT)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Sperm obtained by ejaculation
• Conventional IVF/ICSI
• At least 10 fertilized oocytes (2 PN)

Exclusion Criteria:

-

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: NONE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Individual culture; standard IVF protocol: half of the fertilized oocytes of the patient will be cultured individually in drops of 25 µl Cook cleavage medium till day 3 after fertilization and subsequently in drops of 25 µl Cook blastocyst medium till day 5 after fertilization	Other: control group; standard IVF protocol
EXPERIMENTAL: WOW; Half of the fertilized oocytes of the patient will be cultured in group in a WOW dish, each in a separate microwell but covered with one drop of 30 µl of Cook cleavage medium till day 3 after fertilization and subsequently all the embryos will be transferred to a new WOW dish (in the exactly the same position) covered with 30 µl of Cook blastocyst medium till day 5 after fertilization	Device: Primo Vision embryo culture dish (CE labeled, Vitrolife)

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Blastocyst utilisation rate	number of blastocysts out of fertilized oocytes observed 5 days after fertilization that can be used for the patient (fresh transfer or cryopreservation)	5 days after fertilization

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Morphologic evaluation	Morphologic evaluation according to the Gardner score (Gardner and Schoolcraft, 1999)	5 days after fertilization
change in embryo development	morphologic evaluation at day 2, 3 and 4 after fertilization	at day 2, 3 and 4 after fertilization
pregnancy rate	endocrine pregnancy by measuring hCG in blood sample on day 15 after embryo transfer and clinical pregnancy confirmed by ultrasound, 5 weeks after embryo transfer.	day 15 and week 5 after embryo transfer
life birth rate	birth of a baby nine months after embryo transfer	9 months after embryo transfer
change in secretome	embryo conditioned medium will we collected at day 3 and day 5 after fertilization in eppendorf tubes and kept in -80°C until all samples are collected and they will be analyzed with mass spectrometry to compare the secretome (secreted proteins by the preimplantation embryo).	day 3 and day 5 after fertilization

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University Hospital, Ghent

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): January 1, 2014
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): December 1, 2015
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): December 1, 2015

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 9, 2013
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 9, 2013
• First Posted (ESTIMATE): December 12, 2013

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): December 2, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 29, 2022
• Last Verified: November 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: reduced fertility
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2013/819