COCULTURE WITH OVARIAN-CANCER CELL ENHANCES HUMAN BLASTOCYST FORMATION IN-VITRO

Objective: To examine the effect of human embryo coculture with an ova rian cancer cell line. Design: Prospective, randomized in vitro study. Setting: University of Toronto IVF clinic at The Toronto Hospital. Pa tients: Couples undergoing IVF who chose not to cryopreserve their spa re embryos and were willing to donate spare embryos for research. Inte rvention: Spare embryos were cultured randomly either under regular co nditions with Ham's F-10 medium supplemented with 10% heat inactivated human serum (n = 189) or were cocultured in the same medium, with hum an ovarian epithelial cancer cells (n = 173). Main Outcome Measure: Bl astocyst formation. Results: Coculture with the cancer cell line impro ved the preimplantation embryo development to the blastocyst stage. Th ere was a significant increase in the number of cavitating morulae (68 %) and the proportion of embryos reaching the fully expanded blastocys t stage (39%) compared with those in standard culture medium (34% and 23%, respectively). Conclusion: Coculture of early cleavage stage huma n embryos with epithelial cancer cells markedly improves in vitro huma n blastocyst formation compared with standard culture conditions.