Monday, May 28, 2018
08:00-10:00 That’s The Way We Do It
Chairs: Miriam Almagor,
Israel & Marcos Meseguer, Spain
08:00-08:15 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for quality assurance of an IVF unit

Capsule: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) represent an important element within a quality management system (QMS) of an IVF unit as they are necessary for systematically monitoring and evaluating its clinical performance. The implementation of a KPI system at Medicover Fertility chain of clinics will be presented.

Anat Safran, Israel
08:15-08:30 SpermVD – a novel solution for cryopreservation of small numbers of spermatozoa

Capsule: A novel platform for freezing small numbers of spermatozoa may aid in reducing the need for testicular surgery. With the ability to detect lone spermatozoa in ejaculates and testicular tissue samples, a need has arisen for an efficient and convenient cryopreservation of very small numbers of spermatozoa for future use. The SpermVD is a tool with the potential to answer such need. The ability to freeze even a single spermatozoon brings cell loss to a minimum, without compromising their fertilization ability and thus helps to avoid unnecessary surgical sperm retrieval.

Miki Belenky, Israel
08:30-08:45 Measurement of ICM/Blastocyst ratio

Capsule: Selection of blastocysts with high developmental capacity may be achieved by measurement of the ratio between ICM and blastocyst diameter.

Yael Harir, Israel
08:45-09:00 Few simple things that can improve your swim up

Capsule: The swim up procedure is a simple process and when done in the right way, can give a very good yield for insemination. Some special tips from our experience will be represented.

Idit Ben-Yair, Israel
09:00-09:15 Maturation evaluation of oocytes covered in the cumulous complex

CapsuleThe successful use of in-vitro maturation of human oocytes requires the identification of the maturation phase of the oocyte which has not been stripped of the cumulous. the evaluation of unstripped oocytes in more difficult and has potential uses in both IVM and standard IVF. These techniques of maturation evaluation of oocytes covered in the cumulous complex, which we had pioneered will be taught to the audience.

Michael Dahan, Canada
09:15-09:30 DANA: the full automation software for embryo annotations

Capsule: Dana software for embryo assessment and selection is not just limited to automatic embryo evaluation, but also permit to compare the development profile of any embryo with all the embryos stored in your own database; which is being actualized according to the results of the clinic. Doubtless, Dana makes it possible to get the most out of the database of each clinic.

Marcos Meseguer, Spain
09:30-10:00 Discussion
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
09:00-11:00 That’s The Way We Do It
Chairs: Miriam Almagor,
Israel & Marcos Meseguer, Spain
09:00-09:15 Blastocyst biopsy is preferable to cleavage stage biopsy in IVF-PGD cycles

Capsule: Biopsy of day-5/6 blastocysts, was shown to be more efficient as compared to day-3 biopsy, resulting in higher success rates. Our results show that blastocysts biopsy,more than doubles the implantation rate as compared to day-3 biopsies. We propose that sampling embryos at the blastocyst stage, and aspirating smaller proportion of the embryo, enable the achievement of higher outcome rates.

Irit Granot, Israel
09:15-09:30 Intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection (IMSI) – a tool for selecting the best sperm in real time for the proper patient

Capsule: IMSI is still considered as a controversary technical and laboratory procedure, yet it seems to become a promising procedure in terms of improving the outcome of ICSI treatments. Its benefits could be noticeable in cases of patients with repeated implantation failures, severe male factor infertility and advanced paternal and maternal age. The advantage of IMSI is the magnified image of the sperm cell, obtained on a screen. The “on screen image” is a combination of the magnification of the objective, the camera adapter, ratio between the diagonal screen size in mm and diagonal of the camera chip size in mm, and internal magnification of the microscope. Final values obtained (up to X6000) is the amplification of the surface of the sperm cell image, not observed by the routine X200-400 in ICSI, due to objective limitations of the human eyes.

Yona Barak, Israel & Adrian Ellenbogen, Israel
09:30-09:45 Trophectoderm Biopsy Of Frozen-thawed Blastocysts

Capsule: As it is a common practice to cryopreserve excess embryos at the blastocyst stage, patients may choose to utilize PGD/PGS especially for family balancing after a successful treatment and as such trophectoderm biopsy needs to be carried out on frozen-thawed blastocysts without prior Laser at day 3 stage. With this presentation, we will show how to carry out trophectoderm biopsy on non-herniating frozen-thawed blastocysts which poses more risk of lysis and damage to the embryo and therefore requires delicate techniques.

Adedamilola Atiba, Nigeria
09:45-10:00 TCL; a non-invasive test of embryo spent culture media

Capsule: The development of a non-invasive embryo selection algorithm determining the oxidative status of the embryo’s spent culture media with the Thermochemiluminescence (TCL) AnalyzerTM combined with time-lapse morphokinetic analysis.

Marcos Meseguer, Spain
10:00-10:15 Reconstruction of oocytes by meiotic spindle transferring and increase in the number of patient’ oocytes by transferring the first polar body to the donor oocyte cytoplasm

Capsule: With this video, we will present several types of oocyte cytoplasm donation techniques. Transfer of the oocyte meiotic spindle to the donor oocyte cytoplasm is useful for improving the morphological quality of blastocysts and to avoid the birth of a child with mitochondrial pathology. The 1st polar body transfer technique can also be used to solve problems mentioned above, but it is more appropriate for application in doubling oocytes with the genetic material of the patient, which is available for fertilization and obtaining viable embryos.

Igor Iljin, Ukraine
10:15-10:30 Blastocyst biopsy for genetic analysis

Capsule: The aim of the video session is to show in detail the procedure of blastocyst biopsy for genetic analysis. Tips and tricks will be provided for the most relevant steps of the procedure. 

Elena Milner, Israel
10:30-10:45 E.Vit a new system for vitrification of oocytes and embryos

Capsule: E.Vit is a new simple vitrification system which is built like a capsule with 50µm pores at its bottom. The E.Vit is plugged into the tip of a cryopreservation straw. thus allowing the movement of the vitrification solutions in and out of the straws without the need to move the oocytes or embryos prior plunging into LN.

 Amir Arav, Israel
10:45-11:00 Discussion