A new safe embryo transfer technique and its impact on ICSI outcome

Objective: To assess and modify the after load technique of embryo transfer developed by Adrienne et al. [Adrienne BN, James HS, Sasha H, Aidita NJ, Jeffrey LM. Embryo afterloading: a refinement in embryo transfer technique that may increase clinical pregnancy. Fertil Steril 2005;83:710-4.] and to study its impact on ICSI outcome. Design: Prospective comparative analysis. Setting: A private referral IVF center. Patient's: One hundred and forty-four ICSI-ETs were performed by a single provider and a single embryologist over a 1-year period of time in a private IVF center. Ninety-nine ICSI-ETs were performed as the classic ETs technique and forty-five ICSI-ETs were performed by the external sheath 1st technique. Main outcome measure: Primary outcome: - the degree of presence of mucous and blood in the embryo transfer catheter. Secondary outcome: - clinical pregnancy. Results: The average age of all the patients was 30.4 +/- 4.3 years, with a range of 21-38 years. The overall pregnancy rate was 32.6%. The external sheath 1st technique group showed highly significant easy technique and higher clinical pregnancy than the classic technique (P-value = 0.0023, 0.0025, respectively), also the external sheath 1st technique showed a significantly lower mucous, blood in the inner sheath catheter and the outer sheath catheter over the classic embryo transfer group. Conclusion: External sheath 1st-embryo transfer is a refinement of standard ET technique and may improve clinical pregnancy rates by facilitating the ease of embryo transfer. (C) 2010 Middle East Fertility Society. Production and Hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.