IMR Press / CEOG / Volume 31 / Issue 1 / pii/2004018

Clinical and Experimental Obstetrics & Gynecology (CEOG) is published by IMR Press from Volume 47 Issue 1 (2020). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with S.O.G.

Original Research

A double embryo transfer on days 2 and 4 or 5 improves pregnancy outcome in patients with good embryos but repeated failures in IVF or ICSI

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1 Division of Assisted Reproduction, 1st Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Athens University Medical School, “Alexandra” Maternity Hospital, Athens (Greece)
2 Departmentof Urology, Ioannina University,·Medical School, Ioannina (Greece)
3 Department of Biological Chemistry, Athens University Medical School, Athens (Greece)
Clin. Exp. Obstet. Gynecol. 2004, 31(1), 63–66;
Published: 10 March 2004
Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the outcome of a double embryo transfer during the same cycle for patients who had had three or more implantation failures in IVF-ET or ICSI-ET programs after the transfer of good quality embryos in all attempts. Forty-five women who had had previous unsuccessful attempts in IVF-ET or ICSI-ET programs after transfer of good quality embryos (Group A) were included in the study. Group A was divided into two subgroups, Group A I consisted of 34 patients who underwent embryo transfer on day 2 and day 4 after pick-up and Group A2 consisted of ten patients who underwent embryo trans­fer on day 2 and day 5 after pick-up. Forty-two other women with a similar unsuccessful history in IVF-ET (Group B) were studied as controls. The patients in this group had a day 4 or 5 only transfer without having an additional day 2 transfer. The outcome of the procedure was compared in the two groups. Double embryo transfer had beneficial effects on patients with good embryos but with previous failure attempts. These patients had a 38.2% clinical pregnancy rate and a 50% total pregnancy rate if the additional embryo transfer was done on day 4 and a 60% clinical and 60% total pregnancy rate if the additional embryo transfer was done on day 5. Our data showed that excellent pregnancy rates can be obtained with a commercially available medium and double embryo transfers on days 2 and 4 or 5 after pick-up for patients with good quality embryos that have had previous failure attempts in an IVF­ET program. Due to the fact that endometrial maturation varies considerably in each patient, an adequate endometrial maturation and improved uterine receptivity seem to be the reason for improved pregnancy rates with double embryo transfers. It was also shown that morullae have high viability and high potential for implantation and pregnancy.

Keywords
Double embryo transfer
IVF-ET
ICSI-ET
Pregnancy rate
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