Three live births after human embryo vitrification with the use of aluminum oxide as an intermediate cooling agent: a case report

Objective

To study the possibility of increasing the cooling rates of the vitrification procedure in a closed system with the use of aluminum oxide as an intermediate coolant.

Design

Case report.

Subjects

Six patients undergoing procedures for assisted reproduction.

Intervention

Comparative studies of cryopreservation of donor embryos with aluminum oxide as an intermediate cooling agent (experimental group) and without it (control group) have been performed. After thawing, the embryo morphology and its potential to develop to the blastocyst stage have been assessed. The methodology was then applied to clinical practice.

Main Outcome Measures

Twenty embryos of 6 patients have been vitrified on day 4 after fertilization with the use of aluminum oxide as an intermediate coolant. Fourteen of them have been thawed. All have displayed normal morphology and 10 have formed blastocysts after 24 hours of culture. Four of the patients received embryo transfer with 2 embryos and the other 2 with single embryos.

Results

After preliminary comparative studies of embryos frozen with aluminum oxide and a control group, the results showed no statistically significant difference between their quality and potential to reach to blastocyst stage. That gave us ground to apply the methodology in clinical practice. After the embryo transfer, 3 clinical pregnancies with successful live births have been obtained.

Conclusions

Our experience shows that preimplantation embryos can be cryopreserved aseptically, in closed systems, with the help of aluminum oxide as an intermediate coolant.