Artificial blastocoel collapse of human blastocysts before vitrification and its effect on re-expansion after warming - a prospective observational study using time-lapse microscopy

Vitrified human blastocysts show varied re-expansion capacity after warming. This prospective observational study compared behaviour of artificially collapsed blastocysts (study group patients, n = 69) to that of blastocysts that were vitrified without artificial collapse (control group patients, n = 72). Warmed blastocysts were monitored by time-lapse microscopy and blastocoel re-expansion speed and growth patterns compared between study and control groups. These parameters were also retrospectively compared between blastocysts that resulted in live birth and those that failed. Artificially collapsed blastocysts re-expanded on average 15.01 µm²/min faster than control blastocysts (P = 0.0013). Warmed blastocysts expressed four different patterns of blastocoel growth. The pattern showing contractions at the end of culture was observed to have a lower prevalence in control blastocysts, which coincided with the lower incidence of hatching in this group. Re-expansion speed and prevalence of growth patterns were comparable between blastocysts that did and did not result in a live birth. This was seen in the study and control groups. Despite faster re-expansion and different growth patterns of artificially collapsed blastocysts, live birth rate did not differ between groups. However, this result should be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size and high risk of bias.