Objective:

To demonstrate the efficacy of a two-day blastocyst biopsy course with the first 50 embryos biopsied compared to the overall embryos tested. It has been shown that a two-day ICSI course resulted in no significant difference with the first 100 oocytes injected and overall injected in a previous study. This study will show how a two-day intense training course in blastocyst biopsy can develop the embryologist much more rapidly while maintaining quality outcomes.

Materials & Methods:

A total of 6 embryologists were evaluated in enrolled into the IVF Academy in a two-day blastocyst biopsy training course and evaluated for the number euploidy, no reads (NR) and combined mosaicism with the first 50 embryos biopsied and compared to the overall embryos biopsied. A comparison to a random senior embryologist with 30 years’ experience is the control for overall comparison.

Results:

A total of 2009 embryos were biopsies overall from the students evaluated in this study with 1170 (58%) with euploid results, 61 (5%) NR and 101 (5%) resulted mosaic. The first 50 embryos evaluated in these new trainees resulted in an overall 189 (63%) euploid of the 299 embryos biopsied. There were 0 NR and 0 mosaic embryos reported in the first 50 embryos biopsied in the 6 students evaluated. These data are not significantly different for the number of euploid, mosaic, and NR with the overall student numbers vs the first 50 embryos biopsied. The control senior embryologist showed 419 euploid of 704 embryos biopsied during the same time period with a 2% NR and 5% mosaic. Not significant for the control embryologist compared to the overall data and the first 50 embryos biopsied. Individually, all embryologists were near the mean of 63% euploidy during the study period. One embryologist had a significantly higher euploidy rate (77%) in the first 50 embryos biopsied then regressed to the mean overall. One other embryologists had slightly lower euploidy rate (44%) in the first 50 then increased to meet the mean over time.

Conclusions:

For the first time this study shows empirically that an intense short term training program results in excellent outcomes and much faster time to competency. Most embryologist showed improvement over time as expected. However, there was minimal significance and where there was significance time did develop competency.

A demand for competent embryologists is increasing in all regions of the world. Once a qualified technician is employed it can take several months or years for developing competency under traditional training methods.

Reference:

Anderson, A.R. & Kasa, E. (2022) Clinical Success with a Short Two Day Training Course, PCRS 2022

Affiliations:

EmbryoDirector IVF Academy, San Antonio, Texas, USA