ABSTRACT
The study assessed the developmental potential of germinal vesicle (GV) oocytes subjected to in vitro maturation (IVM) after prematuration culture with cilostamide (a phosphodiesterase-3 inhibitor) and the impact of cilostamide exposure on the morphology of meiosis II (MII) oocytes and subsequent embryo quality. Methods: In total, 994 oocytes were collected from 63 patients. Among 307 GV oocytes, 140 oocytes were selected for the experimental group and 130 oocytes for the control group. The denuded GV-stage oocytes were cultured for 6 hours with cilostamide in the experimental group and without cilostamide in the control group. After 6 hours, the oocytes in the experimental group were washed and transferred to fresh IVM medium. The maturational status of the oocytes in both groups was examined at 26, 36, and 48 hours. Fertilization was assessed at 18 hours post-intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Embryo quality was assessed on days 3 and 5. Results: In total, 92.1% of the oocytes remained in the GV stage, while 6.4% converted to the MI stage (p0.05). With the advent of cilostamide, blastocyst quality was better in the experimental group than in the control group (p<0.05). Conclusion: Cilostamide effectively blocked nuclear maturation and promoted cytoplasmic growth. Prematuration culture with cilostamide enabled synchronization between cytoplasmic and nuclear maturity, resulting in better blastocyst outcomes.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of present study was to evaluate the role of pre-ovulatory GnRH agonist therapy on IVF outcomes in GnRH antagonist cycles. In this prospective study we recruited 100 infertile women undergoing IVF cycles with GnRH antagonists. The patients were assigned to two groups: Group A [the study group, n=42] were assigned for receiving hCG+triptorelin for the final oocyte maturation and group B [the control group, n=58] were assigned for only hCG. The t-test, chi-square [x[2]], and Fisher's exact test were used for data analysis. A p<0.05 was taken as statistically significant. The results are presented by mean +/- SD, and in percents [%].LH levels significantly [p<0.001] increased in the study group on the day of oocyte retrieval. All embryological parameters including the number of mature oocytes, fertilization and cleavage rates, number of high quality embryos and number of cases whose embryos were frozen were non-significantly higher in the study group. There were small but non-significant improvements in the clinical pregnancy, ongoing pregnancy, live birth and implantation rates in the study group. Administering a single dose of GnRH agonist before oocyte retrieval in antagonist cycles may be helpful in improving the pregnancy rate but the results need to be verified in a larger trials