The use of coculture in assisted reproductive technology: does it have any impact?

摘要

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To evaluate the current place of cocultures in in-vitro fertilization. The cocultures may have a role in a very special group of patients who had incompetent embryos grown in the conventional media. RECENT FINDINGS: There is evidence that cocultures help embryos to grow better; however, there is not enough evidence that these are better than the modern sequential media. After U.S. Food and Drug Administration restricted the use of cocultures to only autologous ones, granulosa cell cocultures may help some germinal vesicular oocytes to be rescued to meiosis II oocytes and may increase blastocyst formation rate to increase the pregnancy rate. SUMMARY: Autologous cocultures may help embryos to grow better; however, better-designed studies are needed to evaluate their effect.