Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Mar 6, 2022; 10(7): 2166-2173
Published online Mar 6, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i7.2166
In vitro maturation of human oocytes maintaining good development potential for rescue intracytoplasmic sperm injection with fresh sperm
Yun-Qiao Dong, Chuang-Qi Chen, Yu-Qiang Huang, Dun Liu, Xi-Qian Zhang, Feng-Hua Liu
Yun-Qiao Dong, Chuang-Qi Chen, Yu-Qiang Huang, Dun Liu, Xi-Qian Zhang, Feng-Hua Liu, Department of Assisted Reproductive Center, Guangdong Women and Children Hospital, Guangzhou 511400, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Dong YQ and Liu FH contribute to conceptualization; Dong YQ and Liu D contribute to methodology; Dong YQ, Chen CQ, and Huang YQ contribute to formal analysis and investigation; Dong YQ, Liu FH, and Zhang XQ writing - original draft preparation; Dong YQ and Chen CQ writing - review and editing; Liu FH funding acquisition; Dong YQ and Zhang XQ resources; Liu FH and Zhang XQ supervision; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Science and Technology Collaborative Innovation Project of Guangzhou, No. 201704020217.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the [Guangdong Women and Children’s Hospital] Institutional Review Board [Approval No. 202001158].
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Feng-Hua Liu, MD, Doctor, Department of Assisted Reproductive Center, Guangdong Women and Children Hospital, No. 521 Xingnan Avenue, Guangzhou 511400, Guangdong Province, China. liushine200606@126.com
Received: July 27, 2021
Peer-review started: July 27, 2021
First decision: December 17, 2021
Revised: December 24, 2021
Accepted: January 25, 2022
Article in press: January 25, 2022
Published online: March 6, 2022
Processing time: 217 Days and 16.2 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

The outcomes of the use of commercial in vitro maturation (IVM) medium to culture immature oocytes obtained from conventional ovulation induction, followed by rescue intracytoplasmic sperm injection (RICSI), are not ideal. It is thus difficult to widely adopt this approach in clinical practice. Therefore, it is necessary to explore methods for improving the clinical outcome of IVM.

AIM

To study the effect of sperm on the developmental potential of in vitro-matured oocytes in conventional culture.

METHODS

This was a retrospective study of patients whose immature oocytes were harvested from conventional oocyte stimulation cycles and underwent ICSI at our hospital between June 2018 and August 2020. RICSI was performed using sperm collected on the day of oocyte harvest (old) and sperm collected on the day of RICSI (fresh) and oocytes matured in vitro after 24 h of culture in conventional medium. The rates of in vitro oocyte maturation, normal fertilization, normal cleavage, day-3 top-quality embryos, and useful blastocyst formation were compared between the two groups.

RESULTS

In total, 102 germinal vesicle (GV)-stage immature oocytes were cultured in the old sperm group. In the fresh sperm group, 122 GV-stage immature oocytes were collected and cultured in vitro for 24 h. There were no significant differences in the general conditions of males and females between the two groups (P > 0.05). The oocyte maturation, normal fertilization, and normal cleavage rates of the old and fresh groups were 51.0% vs 55.7%, 61.5% vs 64.7%, and 93.8% vs 93.2%, respectively. None of the rates differed significantly (P > 0.05) between the two groups. However, the day-3 top-quality embryo and useful blastocyst rates of the old and fresh sperm groups were 16.6% vs 63.4%; 6.67% vs 34.6%, respectively. The day-3 top-quality embryos and useful blastocyst rates of the old sperm group were significantly lower than those of the fresh group (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

In vitro maturation with conventional culture medium combined with the use of fresh sperm collected on the day of RICSI is an easy-to-implement strategy for patients whose oocytes are completely or mostly immature.

Keywords: In vitro oocyte maturation; Sperm injections; Intracytoplasmic; Semen analysis; In vitro fertilization; Human oocyte

Core Tip: Owing to the low implantation rate, in vitro maturation (IVM) is difficult to widely adopt in clinical practice. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore methods for improving the clinical outcome of IVM. We studied the effect of sperm on early embryo development from in vitro-matured oocytes. Our results show that IVM with conventional culture medium combined with the use of fresh sperm collected on the day of rescue intracytoplasmic sperm injection is an easy-to-implement strategy for patients whose oocytes are completely or mostly immature.