The effect of frozen embryo transfer regimen on the association between serum progesterone and live birth: a multicentre prospective cohort study (ProFET).

Study Question: What is the association between serum progesterone levels on the day of frozen embryo transfer (FET) and the probability of live birth in women undergoing different FET regimens?

Summary Answer: Overall, serum progesterone levels <7.8 ng/ml were associated with reduced odds of live birth, although the association between serum progesterone levels and the probability of live birth appeared to vary according to the route of progesterone administration.

What Is Known Already: Progesterone is essential for pregnancy success.

Preliminary investigation of the prevalence and implantation potential of abnormal embryonic phenotypes assessed using time-lapse imaging.

This retrospective, single site observational study aimed to delineate five abnormal embryonic developmental phenotypes, assessing their prevalence, development potential and suitability for inclusion in embryo selection models for IVF. In total, 15,819 embryos from 4559 treatment cycles cultured in EmbryoScope® incubators between January 2014 and January 2016 were included. Time-lapse images were assessed retrospectively for five abnormal embryo phenotypes: direct cleavage, reverse cleavage, absent cleavage, chaotic cleavage and cell lysis.

Examining the efficacy of six published time-lapse imaging embryo selection algorithms to predict implantation to demonstrate the need for the development of specific, in-house morphokinetic selection algorithms.

Objective: To study the efficacy of six embryo-selection algorithms (ESAs) when applied to a large, exclusive set of known implantation embryos.

Design: Retrospective, observational analysis.

Setting: Fertility treatment center.

Embryos cultured in a time-lapse system result in superior treatment outcomes: a strict matched pair analysis.

A retrospective strict matched-pair analysis of 728 treatment cycles between January 2011 and September 2014 was performed. A total of 364 treatment cycles, where all embryos were cultured and examined in EmbryoScope, were matched to treatment cycles where all the embryos were cultured in a standard incubator with conventional morphological examination. Matching was performed for patient age, number of oocytes collected, treatment type and date of oocyte collection (± six months).