MONTREAL — Researchers told a recent international symposium that embryologists are grading embryos at the early stages of cell division to help push up in vitro fertilization (IVF) success rates.
The news comes in the wake of studies carried out at both Harvard Medical School in Boston and Yale University's school of medicine in Conncecticut which indicated that it is possible to identify the embryos deemed most likely to implant by monitoring their developmental markers.
“We define 'high implantation potential' embryos as those with four or more cells on day two, and seven or more cells and a less than 20% fragmentatin rate on day three,” said Dr. Shunping Wang (PhD) of the Harvard Medical School who conducted the study.
If an embryo meets the criteria it becomes one of only 7% of embryos to be given a chance to be born. “Only about one in 15 embryos makes the highest grades,” said Dr. Denny Sakkas (PhD), director of IVF Labroatories at Yale. The fate of the embryos which don't make the cut was not made clear
(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
