Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) refers to treatments used to assist people in achieving a pregnancy. Over the last years, ART have been developed with efforts to deliver a healthy baby. However, the selection of the embryo that most likely results in pregnancy remains a critical step in ART. Currently, this selection is based on morphological assessment of the embryos, but up to 70% of those embryos display an abnormal number of chromosomes. Preimplantation genetic test for aneuploidy (PGT-A) is used to assess the ploidy of embryos, although this is an invasive, expensive and time consuming technique. Alternatively, in order to predict the ploidy of pre-implantation embryos (euploidy vs aneuploidy), we suggest to characterise the metabolic profile of the embryo culture medium by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), which is a non-invasive, low cost and fast technique.~The aim of this study is to assess whether, using multivariable analysis to all the collected NMR data, it is possible to identify a differential metabolic pattern between aneuploid and euploid embryos which could improve embryo selection.
This study aims to validate the embryo culture medium analysis by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, as a faster and less-costly alternative to preimplantation genetic test for aneuploidy which could significantly enhance embryo selection and the success rate of assisted reproductive technologies.