Comparison of Standard ART Practice vs. Trophectoderm Biopsy and Whole Chromosome Analysis

Overview

We propose to perform a clinical randomized trial to evaluate the effect of blastocyst biopsy and whole chromosome analysis by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) in comparison to standard Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) methods on on implantation rates, miscarriage rates, and pregnancy rates. This will be three studies into one: a) a comparison of treatment (NGS) and no treatment, b) a non-selection study based on the control group for which we will replace without knowing the ploidy of the embryos, but we will know it later, c) a retrospective study about the use of Mitochondrial DNA as a selection tool.

Patients following the inclusion criteria will be randomized into two groups: 1. Control group: All blastocyst embryos will be biopsied on day 5/6, but the biopsies will be frozen and will not be analyzed before replacement. Blastocyst embryos will be vitrified for future frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycle. Patients will have a single hatching blastocyst (\*) thawed and transferred into the uterus in a FET cycle based on standard embryo quality assessment without NGS. After transfer, all biopsied samples will be analyzed (the replaced embryo also, in order to do a non-selection study). If patients in the control group do not have a pregnancy to term from that FET cycle, euploid frozen blastocysts will be thawed and transferred on the next FET transfer. 2. Test group: All blastocyst embryos will be biopsied on day 5/6, and the biopsies will be analyzed using NGS. (\*) and Biopsied blastocyst embryos will be vitrified for a future frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycle. Patients will have a single hatching euploid blastocyst (\*) thawed and transferred into the uterus in a FET cycle (\*) Hatching blastocysts as described by Gardner and Schoolcraft (1999) The Primary efficacy endpoint of comparing the study group with the control will be ongoing implantation rate (# fetus reaching 2nd trimester / # embryos replaced). All biopsied embryos from the test and control group will have their mitochondrial DNA analyzed, but that information will not be used for purposes of choosing embryos for replacement. Retrospectively but blindly (see blinding of results section), the information will be used at the end of the study to determine which embryos have a higher chance of implanting. If at that point the participating patients have remaining embryos frozen, they will be able to use that information for purposes of embryo selection.