Objective: To evaluate the outcome of the combination of short-period sperm-oocyte coincubation with early rescue intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) after complete failure of in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Methods: We used short-period sperm-oocyte coincubation and overnight fertilization for the oocytes obtained from 10 IVF-ET cycles, and compared the fertilization results and embryo quality. We conducted polar body observation following short-period sperm-oocyte coincubation for 105 conventional IVF cycles, and evaluated the clinical outcome of early rescue ICSI for total fertilization failure.
Results: No significant differences were noted in fertilization outcome and embryo quality between the 3 h short-period and overnight fertilizations (P > 0.05). The combined strategy achieved a clinical pregnancy rate of 53.3%, an implantation rate of 38.0%, with 64 babies born, of whom 44.8% were taken home.
Conclusion: The combination of short-period sperm-oocyte coincubation with early rescue ICSI can significantly improve the clinical outcome in patients who have experienced complete failure of in vitro fertilization.