A randomized controlled study of human serum albumin and serum substitute supplement as protein supplements for IVF culture and the effect on live birth rates.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at the intervention named in the title.

Whether the expense, labor and risk of adding additional human-derived protein to IVF media are warranted is a question unanswered.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 528 patients were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, both men and women.

In a randomized controlled trial with couples undergoing routine IVF or ICSI, 528 patients were assigned to one of two treatment groups.

Embryos were cultured in either media supplemented with HSA as a solitary protein supplement or in media supplemented with HSA+serum substitute supplement (SSS) from the 2PN stage until the time of embryo transfer.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

Because people in this study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Clinical end-points monitored included implantation (total 1151 embryos) and live birth rates (total 528 patients).

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Birth Rate, Blood Proteins, Cryopreservation, Culture Media, Embryo Culture Techniques, Embryo Implantation and Embryo Transfer.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study in 528 patients.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2009 (Human reproduction (Oxford, England)), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.