Time-lapse Technology for Embryos

CRGH continues to be at the forefront of innovation in the field of IVF. As such, we give patients the option of culturing their embryos in our Embryoscopes. There is a growing body of evidence that these systems have a significant positive impact on success rates compared to traditional incubators.

Time-lapse incubators allow uninterrupted culture of embryos, ensuring the most stable of environments during their six days of development from fertilisation to blastocyst. In addition, they generate images of the embryos every 10 to 15 minutes, creating a time-lapse video of embryo development. This enables our embryologists to analyse every stage of development and identify any potential aberrations in embryo development that would be missed when using conventional incubation techniques. This helps us improve embryo selection for transfer, cryopreservation and biopsy.

In this video Suzanne Cawood, Head of Embryology, explains the time-lapse systems at CRGH for embryos.

The time-lapse system also generates a KIDScore for each embryo to aid in the decision-making of which embryo to select. This score is not only based on the morphology, but also the cleavage pattern and morphokinetics of the embryo which all correlate with improved implantation outcomes.

A randomised control trial performed by Rubio et al. in 2014 comparing culture and selection using the Embryoscope documented an increase in ongoing pregnancy rate of 23% and a reduction of early miscarriage by 36%. Our own data at CRGH also suggests that culture of embryos in the Embryoscope results in a higher percentage of genetically normal blastocysts.