Why using an Embryoscope is not enough

Many fertility clinics are now offering time lapse technology in one form or another, to improve culture conditions and to provide additional information with which to select the best embryo.

In many cases this is offered via a time lapse incubator, the EmbryoScope. This incubator takes a photograph of the embryos, every 10 minutes, allowing the time that the embryo reaches every key stage of development to be assessed and therefore producing a time-line of embryo development.

However, there are many differences in the way that this equipment is used in IVF clinics, from just an incubator to improve culture conditions, to a revolutionary way of assessing which embryo from a group is most likely to implant. If used correctly, this technology has the potential to improve pregnancy rates, by improved embryo selection.

At Care Fertility, we have had over one thousand births from our Embryoscopes and this has put us in the unique position of being able to compare the time-line of embryo development in embryos that have resulted in the birth of a baby, to those that have not. Interestingly, this has shown us that there are differences in the time-line of development of those embryos that are able to result in a birth, despite their appearance.

Caremaps time-lapse imaging

With this information, we have created Caremaps, a unique algorithm, based on the ideal times that an embryo should reach certain key stages of development. With Caremaps, all of your embryos will be compared to this time-line and this information will be used to select the embryos for transfer that have the highest chance of becoming a baby.

With Caremaps, we have demonstrated an uplift in pregnancy and birth rates, compared with standard methods in all age groups, using this technique.

Many factors affect IVF outcome but female age has the greatest influence on success rates. Caremaps benefits all age groups and in women over 39 years, the relative increase in live birth rate is greatest. Compared with standard embryo culture and selection.