Laboratory Alarms

This week we had a unique situation in the IVF lab. A regulator for the air table failed that is pressured with dry nitrogen. The same nitrogen that supports the incubators. So at 1AM we had no nitrogen in the lab and didn’t know why at the time. We did not have any embryos in the incubator, but what a lot of people may not know, is that you can grow embryos in high O2. We grew embryos at ambient air (20% O2) for years. It was not until Late 1990’s, early 2000’s that we had low O2 incubators available. A lot of embryologists post 2000, may not know that low O2 is not required. It has been shown that we get more embryos. Its been a long time since anyone has ever looked at that information. Most of that data was derived from the day 2 and day 3 embryo development. I was an early adopter to blastocyst culture and an early adopter to low O2.

Some recommended remedies

• There are compressors you can purchase for operating your tables on with out
• the need for using your gas for incubators.
•  Have separate tanks at each table.

Student Profile

• Note what I am describing to you is done on one embryo with testing the method

and refreezing, try another method, and refreeze, etc….

This week is Vitrification week at the IVF Academy, and we had a fun day of trying new methods of Vitrification and warming. Patty and Hidekel did the Vitrification with 1 min ES, 1 min VS and either thawed straight into TS, or DS or WS. And all 3 warming methods had survival of the embryo. We went directly into VS for 3 min and had great survival. We dropped it on the floor, picked it up and went into TS, AND it survived.
When the students get the basics down and have mastered that Vit skill, I really love trying to push the envelope and challenge them to learn and grow. Because someday, it will go wrong and it’s good to have a library to reference of possible outcomes. And doing it in a safe environment outside the clinical laboratory.