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EGG Sensor for Oocyte Characterization
Sponsor: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Besancon
Summary
While intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) has made significant progress in the treatment of male infertility, the cumulative delivery rate is less than 30%, and birth is sometimes only achieved after several transfers. This success rate, combined with the possibility of repeated transfer failures, causes great distress, impacting couples' personal, social, and professional lives. These failures also have a significant economic impact on society and assisted reproductive technologies (ART) laboratories, including costs related to personnel, consumables, and cryopreservation activities. Among the factors influencing the success of ICSI, the quality of the oocyte is paramount. Identifying mature oocytes with high birth potential is therefore a crucial step in any attempt. At present, oocyte selection is mainly based on subjective visual morphological criteria, primarily limited to the stage of meiotic maturation. Various objective selection criteria are currently being tested, such as markers in follicular fluid or the transcriptome of cumulus and granulosa cells. Mechanical oocyte characterization is another objective approach to assessing oocyte quality. EGG Sensor is a reliable, cost-effective platform that measures forces ranging from a few nanonewtons to a few micronewtons in a liquid medium on living cells. It enables the characterization of the mechanical behavior of oocytes (kinetic measurements of forces resulting from EGG sensor action). The EGG sensor has been evaluated, enabling the EGG platform to be duplicated at the ART center of the Besançon University Hospital, making measurement and calibration more reliable, and allowing for the characterization of a series of oocytes excluded from the ICSI procedure. The preclinical stages in the development of the EGG sensor have thus been validated. The next stage of development is to validate the device in an operational environment. The aim of this pilot study is to evaluate the mechanical qualification of oocytes by the EGG sensor in real-life conditions during an ICSI-type ART attempt.
Official title: Use of the EGG Sensor to Characterize Human Oocytes in IVF With ICSI
Key Details
Gender
FEMALE
Age Range
18 Years - 43 Years
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
20
Start Date
2024-09
Completion Date
2027-09
Last Updated
2024-07-12
Healthy Volunteers
No
Conditions
Interventions
Mechanical characterization
The oocyte is placed in a culture dish with IVF culture medium. This procedure is similar to that used in the ICSI procedure, except that the injection pipette is replaced by a glass indenter. The indenter (sterile, single-use, blunt-edged glass cylinder, L:16mm, ø:0.85mm, mass:8mg) is completely decoupled from the micromanipulation and microinjection platform and driven by the principle of a magnetic spring with negative stiffness. The oocyte is immobilized using a restraining pipette to prevent unwanted movement during measurement. The main objective is to investigate the prognostic value of parameters derived from kinetic measurements of microforces on mature human oocytes in the context of IVF with ICSI. On each oocyte the mechanical testing is divided in 4 successive loading unloading phase to measure: * global elasticity of the oocyte. * global viscosity behaviour of the oocyte. * local elasticity of the oocyte. * local viscosity behaviour of the pellucid membrane.