Quality control in IVF with mouse bioassays: a four years' experience.

Objective: We analyzed retrospectively the relevance of 4 years of quality control on homemade culture medium with the mouse IVF and zygote bioassay.
Design: In vitro or in vivo fertilized mouse oocytes were cultured in each batch of medium. Two-cell-stage and expanded blastocyst development was recorded for each batch of medium. Data on fertilization and embryo quality obtained in human in vitro fertilization were recorded for each batch. IVF treatment cycles for male infertility and cycles with sperm microinjection were excluded.
Results: Human oocyte fertilization dropped from 60 to 54%, respectively, from 57 to 41% in a significant way (P < 0.05 resp. P < 0.01) and the human mean embryo score decreased from 4.17 +/- 1.21 to 3.69 +/- 1.06 (P < 0.05) when media were used with a low two-cell-stage development (< or = 75%) for the mouse zygote or mouse IVF bioassay. The pregnancy rate was not affected.
Conclusions: Media with high scores in mouse bioassays show higher fertilization rates and better embryo quality when used for human IVF.