Elective single embryo transfer: Comparison of blastocyst and cleavage-stage embryo transfer.

Blastocysts are reportedly suitable for preventing multiple pregnancies as a result of the high implantation rate per embryo. The present study compared clinical results for elective single embryo transfer (ET) between blastocysts and cleavage-stage embryos in order to ascertain the usefulness of blastocyst culturing in single ET. Between January 2002 and December 2004, conventional fertilization ET and/or intracytoplasmic sperm injection was carried out for single ET in 86 cycles, to prevent multiple pregnancies (for medical reasons or because of patient wishes).

Five cases of dizygotic triplet pregnancy following assisted reproductive techniques.

Of 816 patients who became clinically pregnant by assisted reproductive techniques between September 2000 and August 2004, we experienced 10 cases (1.2%) of monozygotic twinning, and in five of these 10 cases, implantation of another embryo resulted in dizygotic triplets. Here, we report these five cases of dizygotic triplets.

Effect of activation methods for bovine oocytes after intracytoplasmic injection.

A principal nuclear transfer procedure is to inject a donor cell into the perivitelline space in an enucleated oocyte and then electric fusion is performed (cell fusion method). The effects of activation methods in reconstructed oocytes for the serum-starved somatic cell cloning procedure were investigated in this study by means of intracytoplasmic injection (i.c.

Effect of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) concentration during vitrification of in vitro matured bovine oocytes.

Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was used as a substitute for serum in a vitrification solution for in vitro matured bovine oocytes. In vitro matured bovine oocytes were cryopreserved in various vitrification solutions (VS) supplemented with different concentrations (0.05, 0.