What is time-lapse IVF?

time-lapse technology, so historically what happened was, you would have your egg collection, they would go into an incubator, we take them out of the incubator mix the sperm, we’d check them the next morning, they’d go back in the incubator, you might check them on day 2, you might check them on day 3, you might check them on day 5 and again on day 6, so all you get is little snapshots and you’re having to remove them from their environment to check them. Bear in mind embryos have to be cultured in high CO2 environments, not 20% oxygen which is what the normal atmospheric conditions are. You’re disrupting their environment by doing that. With time lapse, what it allowed to do, was to basically put a camera into the incubator and you can monitor all of those embryos every 10 minutes without disturbing that environment and what that allowed us also to do is see the whole development throughout their entire process and that allowed us to deselect embryos, so for an example, on the old system if you checked an embryo and it was fertilized and then a two cell and then an eight cell and then a blastocyst you’d think it was good. With the time lapse you might see the fertilization, then that divide straight into three cells and then which is not a good development point, you might see it not be as good on day three and then but it still makes a good quality blastocyst and it’s allowing you to deselect those embryos and look at the what’s called morphokinetics to help us select the best embryos for patients and given the highest chance of pregnancy.

Over the last decade, a new generation of incubators were developed. That provides us with the ability to monitor our embryos without removing them from the incubator which means that the embryos, thanks to these incubators, will remain in a secluded cultural environment. We don’t need to remove them in order to assess their progress and development and on the other hand, thanks to these incubators, that we have the ability to have an an amazing and a huge number of information and morphokinetic data of the embryo as the embryos are monitored every few minutes (10 to 20 minutes) which means that by the end of the council we will have a whole small video with lots and lots of shots of the embryo and we can assess the embryo development in a very high detail. A recent progress is that this morphokinetic monitoring of the embryo was linked with the artificial intelligence technology so, we now have available automated ways of embryo selection which help us improve the selection of the embryos based on the morphokinetic development and hence, improve the chances for a pregnancy.

Time lapse IVF is a little incubator which is clever and intelligent because you can put the embryos from the point of fertilization and you can follow up their division and their growth without having to open the incubator whilst you are sitting at your desk because it’s connected – which is fantastic environment rather than opening and closing. It is good piece of kit for any laboratory but to claim that putting the embryos in that time lapse as opposed to a standard incubator that it will make wonders, that will be stretching it and charging for it extra because the embryos are in the incubator is not even common sense because if you feel it is of benefit put it as part of the pricing structure but don’t over eager it it by suggesting that this will just make my grandmother pregnant.

Time-lapse is an advanced incubation system that thanks to micro cameras can acquire digital images of embryos every 5 minutes. This allows the embryologist to observe the evolution of the embryo development from the moment which fertilisation took place until the transfer into the maternal uterus without the need of taking them out and checking on them. With the time-lapse we can analyze the time of the cell division, their synchrony and duration of the cell cycle of the embryo. This parameter is important because it can predict implantation potential and help the embryologist to select the best embryo to transfer.

Time-lapse is an advanced new technology and it’s simply an incubator that we culture the embryos that like all the other incubators that we have in the lab – to grow the embryos but the difference with this incubator is that it maintains a very stable environment and we don’t remove the embryos from that incubator.
Why is this happening?
That’s because it has state-of-the-art technology that ensures a very stable cultural environment for the embryos and it has very small incubator chambers that allows rapid recovery of the culture conditions.
The most important feature of an embryoscope is that it takes a photo of the embryo every few seconds and you can visualize that on the screen and therefore there is no need to remove the embryos from the incubator to assess them. That helps the advanced technology that it has and the algorithms it helps the embryologists to use the information to select the best embryo that has the highest chances for implantation and in a healthy pregnancy.

Time-lapse IVF is a method of incubation and imaging which helps select the embryos most likely to develop into a baby. During conventional IVF, the developing embryos are checked every day under the microscope, which involves the removal of the embryos out of the incubator, even for a short period of time. Time-lapse IVF allows thousands of images of the embryos to be taken as they grow without disturbing them. The embryologist can have a continuous view of each embryo as it develops without removing it from the incubator, then the embryologist can use advanced software to look at the time-lapse movies of the embryos to select the best ones for transfer and freezing. According to HFEA, time-lapse incubation and imaging is rated amber – meaning that there is conflicting evidence from RCTC as to whether it is effective at improving the chances of having a baby for most fertility patients. Initial research has shown some promise but there is not enough evidence to show that this method is actually effective at improving chances of having a baby, so this is something that the patient has to consider if time-lapse IVF is offered at an extra cost.