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
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Some patients suffer from complete immaturity of all eggs from conventional ovulation induction. The outcomes of the use of commercial in vitro maturation (IVM) medium to culture these immature oocytes 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.

Research motivation

In early clinical work, we found that immature oocytes can achieve a better clinical outcome after being cultured in vitro and fertilized with fresh sperm. Therefore, in this study, we wanted to further confirm this result and compare the outcome of in vitro matured eggs fertilized with fresh and old sperm.

Research objectives

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

Research methods

Participants: The germinal vesicle (GV)-stage oocytes were donated by 28 patients who underwent intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) treatment due to male factors. Oocytes collection: Those GV-stage oocytes with a discernable germinal vesicle were donated and collected for this study. ICSI and IVM: GV-stage oocytes were randomly distributed to the old and fresh sperm groups. They were cultured for 24 h in the G-IVF-PLUS medium. The criterion of nuclear maturation was the extrusion of the first polar body. Then the number of MII-stage oocytes were conducted rescue intracytoplasmic sperm injection (RICSI) using old or fresh sperm.

Research results

None of the oocyte maturation, normal fertilization, and normal cleavage rates differed significantly between the two groups. The day-3 top-quality embryos and useful blastocyst rates of the old sperm group were significantly lower than those of the fresh group.

Research conclusions

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.

Research perspectives

For patients with poor oocyte maturity due to unknown reasons, the ICSI strategy could be recommended to be modified in the next cycle to provide a chance of the maturation of immature oocytes in culture in vitro.