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Granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor-containing medium treatment after thawing improves blastocyst-transfer outcomes in the frozen- thawed blastocyst-transfer cycle

  • Assisted Reproduction Technologies
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

To determine whether granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)-containing medium could improve embryo-transfer outcomes in frozen-thawed blastocyst transfer.

Methods

Patients who underwent frozen-thawed blastocyst transfer (430 women, aged 30–39 years, 566 cycles) were analyzed. Frozen-thawed blastocysts were cultured in GM-CSF-containing medium or control medium for 3–5 h, followed by transfer to the uterus. The embryo-transfer outcomes in the two groups were measured and compared, and a propensity score matching (1:1) method was used to balance the differences in baseline characteristics. We analyzed 213 matched samples.

Results

In patients who underwent frozen-thawed blastocyst transfer with GM-CSF, the percentage of human chorionic gonadotropin-positive cases, biochemical pregnancies, clinical pregnancies, ongoing pregnancies, and live birth rates was 60.6%, 7.98%, 52.6%, 42.9%, and 40.9%, respectively, as compared with 45.1%, 3.29%, 41.8%, 31.1%, and 30.5%, respectively, for the control groups. The rates of human chorionic gonadotropin positivity (odds ratio [OR]: 1.87, 95% confidence interval: [CI]: 1.27–2.75), biochemical pregnancy (2.55, 1.04–6.29), clinical pregnancy (1.54, 1.05–2.27), ongoing pregnancy (1.64, 1.13–2.41), and live birth (1.67, 1.14–2.45) were significantly higher in the GM-CSF group than the control group. The incidence of pregnancy loss (22.3% vs. 27.0%) did not significantly differ between the groups.

Conclusion

The use of a GM-CSF-containing medium for blastocyst-recovery culture improved the live birth rate as a result of increased implantation rate in the frozen-thawed blastocyst-transfer cycle. The use of GM-CSF-containing medium following blastocyst thawing could be an effective choice for improving the blastocyst-transfer outcomes.

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Data availability

The datasets analyzed in this study are not published in order to protect personal information but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the staff of Takahashi Women’s Clinic. We also thank Editage (http://www.editage.com) for editing and reviewing this manuscript for language.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Takahashi Women’s Clinic, 18-14-6F Shinmachi, Chuo-ku, Chiba, 260-0028, Japan

    Miki Okabe-Kinoshita, Tatsuya Kobayashi, Masashi Shioya, Tomoharu Sugiura, Maki Fujita & Keiichi Takahashi

  2. Department of Reproductive Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba, 260-8670, Japan

    Tatsuya Kobayashi & Masashi Shioya

Authors
  1. Miki Okabe-Kinoshita
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  6. Keiichi Takahashi
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by MO-K, TK, TS, MF, and KT. In vitro experiments were performed by MO-K and MS. The first draft of the manuscript was written by TK and MO-K. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript and read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tatsuya Kobayashi.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

This study was approved by the institutional review board of Takahashi Women’s Clinic (protocol number: TWC20-001). The in vitro experimental study was approved by the institutional review board of Takahashi Women’s Clinic (protocol number: TWC20-002) and registered at the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Consent to participate

Consent for this study was obtained in the form of opt-out through our clinic website and a bulletin board. For the in vitro experiments, written consent was obtained from all patients, and the discarded, cryopreserved blastocysts were used for the outgrowth assay.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Okabe-Kinoshita, M., Kobayashi, T., Shioya, M. et al. Granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor-containing medium treatment after thawing improves blastocyst-transfer outcomes in the frozen- thawed blastocyst-transfer cycle. J Assist Reprod Genet 39, 1373–1381 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-022-02493-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-022-02493-1

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