Amr Azim, M.D. on Advances in In Vitro Fertilization

Certainly, IVF has come a long way. We are more and more able to sustain embryos in the lab for longer periods of time. Right now, embryos can be sustained for five, six, or sometimes even seven days in the lab after fertilization. Theoretically, this will give the advantage of the ability to watch the embryos grow and select the better embryos based on the fact that probably the lower quality embryos would not make it that far. Because of that, you are able to select the better embryos to place back into the uterus and hopefully reduce the incidence of multiple pregnancies because you are transferring less and less embryos.

These theoretical advantages were not proven beyond doubt. As a matter of fact, studies that compared day #3 transfer to day #5 transfer in a prospective and a randomized fashion did not show a clear-cut advantage of one day of transfer over another day. The study from Australia is encouraging. They mention that transferring on day #5 would improve the outcome for older women and this awaits further confirmation from other group and the study needs to be done in a prospective fashion.

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Amr Azim, M.D. on Advances in In Vitro Fertilization

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