BACKGROUND For infertile women aged over 37 years, failure of the zona pellucida to rupture is believed to be associated with a decreased implantation rate in in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). It has been suggested that assisted hatching of embryos will increase the pregnancy rate with IVF by means of mechanically facilitating the hatching process. METHO...

STUDY QUESTION Does laser-assisted zona thinning of cleavage stage mouse embryos facilitate hatching in vitro? SUMMARY ANSWER No, unlike laser zona opening, zona thinning does not facilitate embryo hatching. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY Artificial opening of the zona pellucida facilitates hatching of mouse and human embryos. Laser-assisted zona thinning has also been used for the purpose of assist...

Problem statement: The ability of a blast cyst to hatch, or escape, from the Zona Pellucida (ZP) that surrounds and protects the embryo during its first few days of development is one of many critical events that must occur for successful reproduction. Implantation of the embryo in the uterine lining is impossible unless hatching occurs. Hard or thick ZP will therefore impaire the implantation ...

BACKGROUND Extended in vitro embryo culture and blastocyst transfer have emerged as essential components of the advanced reproductive technology armamentarium, permitting selection of more advanced embryos considered best suited for transfer. AIM OF STUDY The aim of this study was to compare between cleavage stage and blastocyst stage embryo transfer in patients undergoing intracytoplasmic sp...

AlSi10Mg inclined struts with angle of 45° were fabricated by selective laser melting (SLM) using different scanning speed and hatch spacing to gain insight into the evolution of the molten pool morphology, surface roughness, and dimensional accuracy. The results show that the average width and depth of the molten pool, the lower surface roughness and dimensional deviation decrease with the inc...

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to examine the effect of laser-assisted zona thinning (LAZT) at one or four-points on the blastocyst formation and hatching process in mice with respect to female age. METHODS Eight-cell or morula embryos collected from superovulated C57BL female mice with different ages (6-11 and 28-31 weeks) were treated with LAZT at one-point (LAZT1) or four-points (LAZT4). The z...

in order to understand the impact of layer-wise scanning direction in the selective laser sintering process, test coupons were manufactured for mechanical testing from duraform™ polyamide powder. the effects of laser energy density, varying between 0.003 and 0.024 j/mm 2 were examined in test specimens rotated 90º through the z axis. sls machines do not always facilitate ‘cross-hatching’ of lay...

The aim of the present study was to determine whether the size of the zona pellucida (ZP) thinning area by laser-assisted hatching affected the potential development of vitrified-warmed embryos. A total of 196 vitrified-warmed cleavage-stage embryos (from 49 patients, four sister embryos per patient) were used in the study, i.e., four sister embryos from each patient were randomly assigned to f...

OBJECTIVE We studied the effect of the site of laser zona opening on the complete hatching of mouse blastocysts and the cell numbers of the completely hatched blastocysts. METHODS Mouse blastocysts were randomly allocated to the inner cell mass (ICM) group (zona opening performed at the site of the ICM, n=125), the trophectoderm (TE) group (zona opening performed opposite to the ICM, n=125) a...