title: Human amniotic fluid for fertilization and culture of human embryos: results of clinical trials in human in vitro fertilization (IVF) programs.
abstract: We report the outcome of clinical trials carried out in two IVF programs, comparing the use of human amniotic fluid (HAF) as a complete medium to Whittingham's T6 medium containing human serum (T6 + 10% HS) for egg incubation, insemination, embryo culture, and embryo transfer. There were no significant differences in the clinical trials between HAF used alone as a complete medium and T6 + 10% HS in fertilization rates of eggs, cleavage rates of embryos up to 48 hours in culture, pregnancy success rates after embryo replacement or the outcome of pregnancies. There was no advantage in using T6 + 10% HS for fertilization of eggs and HAF as a complete medium for embryo culture and transfer in any of the parameters examined. We conclude that HAF does not meet the complete requirements of human eggs and embryos in vitro and further developments of culture media are required to obtain embryo development equivalent to that in vivo.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology of Reproduction, University of Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gianaroli
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Trounson
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ferraretti
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chiappazzo
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bafaro
mesh_terms: D000653:Amniotic Fluid; D001755:Blastocyst / Q000502:physiology*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003470:Culture Media; D005260:Female; D005307:Fertilization in Vitro / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D011897:Random Allocation
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media