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17.12.2018 09:08:25
What was actually developed for deep-sea exploration in the clinic of the city of Innsbruck contributes to the joys of motherhood. A new boast of the Infertility Treatment Centre of the Tirol Kliniken Hospital is an embryoscope, a camera with which you can observe artificial fertilization of ova in detail. “We have been striving for this for a long time, and the camera has been working for a week now,” says Bettina Toth, Head of the Gynaecological Endocrinology and Reproductive Medicine Hospital. “It is always a matter of fulfilling our patients’ desire to have children.”
The embryoscope helps only if we are not talking about fertilization in the natural way. In vitro fertilization should replicate the natural process. “In nature, in five days the embryo moves from the end of the fallopian tube into the uterus and implants there. It is the moment when, with artificial fertilization, we try to implant,” explains Toth. The embryo should have the best possible chances of growing to become a healthy baby.
With the so-called extracorporal fertilization (in vitro fertilisation, i.e. in the test tube), from 10 to 15 patient’s ova are fertilized. Then, by the fifth day, doctors must decide which embryo at this early but especially important stage is well developed and has the greatest potential.
And at this very moment a new device from the Innsbruck Hospital comes into play. Previously, in order to make this important decision, doctors used the standard method practiced all over the world, which until now worked quite successfully. “We implanted three or four fertilized ova at intervals of a few seconds,” explains Wolfgang Biasio, a biologist at the Innsbruck Gynaecological Endocrinology and Reproductive Medicine Hospital.
Until now it was necessary to open the incubator and take out the glass cups with fertilized ova. “Because of this embryos are under stress, and a lot changes,” explains Biasio. The conditions are absolutely imperfect.
By using the embryoscope, doctors can observe ova of 15 patients, without pulling the ova out of the ideal environment (the incubator reproduces the conditions just like those inside the uterus).
Another big advantage is the accuracy of the observations that form the basis of the future, in the literal sense of the word, vital decision. For ten minutes the time-lapse camera (i.e. for time-lapse photography) transmits an image at eleven different levels. “The development of ova can be very different,” says Biasio. “All these images help us conclude about the potential of each embryo, developmental defects are better detected. We can see cell division into two, three, four and eight cells. If the cells reverse their division, this is an alarming signal,” explains Biasio. Such an embryo is not implanted, since the probability of developmental anomalies is very high.
Fertilization, even with the help of the new method, cannot guarantee pregnancy, since other factors play their role in the diagnostic decision. Toth considers the new technique to be a particularly valuable component for artificial fertilization. “We are on the right track, taking into account that the probability of getting pregnant naturally in healthy couples is 20%. With our support, in the case of artificial fertilization it is possible to raise this percentage to about 50%.”
The original deep-sea camera which magnifies the image of an ovum to look 200 times larger makes it easier for doctors to implant the healthiest ovum.
