Evidence-based ET
John F. Hasler
Does the inclusion of sucrose in EG freezing medium improve embryo survival and pregnancy rates?
As pointed out previously in this column, efficacious cryopreservation of bovine embryos is critical to the commercial ET industry because, as has been the case for some years now, more than 70% of embryos collected in the US are frozen, while fewer than 30% are transferred fresh. Following the published report of Voelkel and Hu in 1992 on cryopreservation with EG, the commercial bovine ET industry rather quickly switched from glycerol to EG as the major cryoprotectant in freezing media. The overall percentage of embryos frozen in EG rose rapidly starting in 1992 and reached 97% in 2008, the last year that the AETA collected data on this specific statistic.
Several companies provide 1.5 M EG freezing media with or without the inclusion of 0.1 M sucrose. The question posed here is whether including sucrose in the freezing medium makes any difference. In the normal range of ambient temperatures under which most embryos are placed in freezing media and loaded into straws, sucrose does not enter the cells. Although sucrose readily diffuses through the zona, it remains outside the cells and, at the relatively low concentration of 0.1 M, exerts a mild osmotic imbalance, thereby pulling some water out of the cells. Whether this improves embryo survival is in question and may, in fact, be somewhat related to embryo stage of development. (more…)
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