Effect of A23187 ionophore treatment on human blastocyst development-a sibling oocyte study.

Purpose: To investigate whether treatment with commercially available ready-to-use A23187 ionophore (GM508-CultActive) improves embryo development outcome in patients with a history of embryo developmental problems.

Methods: This is a uni-center prospective study in which sibling oocytes of patients with embryos of poor quality on day 5 in the previous cycle were treated or not with CultActive.

Results: Two hundred forty-seven metaphase II (MII) oocytes from 19 cycles performed between 2016 and 2019 were included in the study. After ICSI, the sibling oocytes were assigned to the treatment group or to the control group, following an electronically generated randomization list. A number of 122 MII were treated with CultActive and 125 MII had no treatment and were assigned to the control group. No difference in fertilization rate (p = 0.255) or in the capacity of embryos to reach good quality on day 5 (p = 0.197) was observed between the two groups. The utilization rates defined as the number of embryos transferred or cryopreserved per mature oocyte (p = 0.438) or per fertilized oocytes (p = 0.299) were not significantly different between the treated group and the control group.

Conclusion: The results of the current study do not support the use of CultActive in cases with embryo developmental problems.