Clinical utility of freeze-all approach in ART treatment: A mini-review.

Clinical utility of freeze-all approach in ART treatment: A mini-review. Cryobiology. 2019 Nov 23;: Authors: Romualdo S, Sandro EC Abstract A significant proportion of couples at reproductive age rely on assisted reproductive technology to overcome infertility. In vitro fertilisation (IVF) involves typically the use of exogenous gonadotropins to stimulate the ovary to produce oocytes, which are collected surgically. After fertilization by conventional IVF or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), embryos are cultured in the embryology laboratory for a few days before being replaced into the uterus (fresh embryo transfer). Spare embryos can be vitrified and stored in liquid nitrogen to be transferred in a subsequent cycle. Over the years, concerns have arisen about possible adverse outcomes of transferring embryos back to the uterus immediately after controlled ovarian stimulation (COS) as regards to obstetrical and perinatal outcomes. It has been suggested that high levels of hormone during COS could create a relatively hostile environment for embryo implantation whilst increasing the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). With the remarkedly improvement of vitrification as an alternative to the slow-freezing technique for human embryos, a new strategy the so-called "freeze-all" (FA) or "elective frozen embryo transfer" (eFET) was introduced. This approach involves COS, followed by the elective cryopreservation of the en...
Source: Cryobiology - Category: Biology Authors: Tags: Cryobiology Source Type: research