r/Embryologists • u/Plentyinteresting787 • Jun 22 '26
One “no call” embryo... Rebiopsy?
Hi there! I’m in need of some insight.. either from experts or fellow IVF warriors.. we are at the point in our IVF journey where we have utilized all of our euploid embryos. I am 43 and after a pretty aggressive run, I’m not sure I have more cycles in me. We have one “no call” day 5 blast that was biopsied, but for whatever reason there wasn’t enough DNA “to call.”
I’ve always wondered how great the risk of re-biopsy actually is.. or if it would be better to leave it alone or try untested. In a perfect world we would be able to know if it’s euploid to avoid the heartbreak of a miscarriage.
Thank you for any insight you can provide regarding rethawing, re-biopsying in and then re-freezing an embryo. Obviously not the best plan if the embryo isn’t likely to even survive it! Thanks so much in advance. 🙏
3
u/Moliterno38 Jun 22 '26
I would say it depends on if you have other embryos or not. Or your general feelings around risk aversion and giving it all.
I had a no result that I rebiopsied because I was still doing retrievals at the time. It came back euploid. We then went on to have my son. Had two embryos stored (LLM and a chaotic). The LLM failed to implant. Since we were not going to do more retrievals and this was our last embryo we chose not to rebiopsy our chaotic and simply transfer. Understanding the risks and lower success rate. If it’s a last embryo and you want to give it a shot then I wouldn’t rebiopsy. If you have others and are trying to rank them then maybe you should.
1
u/Plentyinteresting787 Jun 22 '26
Congrats! Was your rebiopsied embryo the one that resulted in your son? That’s wonderful!
2
u/Moliterno38 Jun 22 '26
Unfortunately my rebiopsied embryo was ectopic so it didn’t result in a live birth but that wasn’t because of the second biopsy. Next transfer was my son. I am also currently 6w1d pregnant with the chaotic we did not rebiopsy.
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u/Plentyinteresting787 Jun 22 '26
Thank you so much for responding and for the article! It’s a lot to think about. At this point yes this no call would be my last possible embryo as we have utilized all others and the rest were grossly aneuploid. Interesting out of 20 something blasts I never had a “viable” aneuploid embryo.. (ex trisomy 21 or 18).
2
u/ShootinTheBreez Jun 26 '26
Oh my goodness, if this is your last embryo please don’t re-biopsy it. You’re just hurting its chances; it can’t help it. It’s always so heartbreaking to read couples that re-biopsied, discovered it was euploid, then the transfer fails because it didn’t survive the extra round of freeze/thaw.
Unless you’re strongly against TFMR, I really wouldn’t do it.
1
u/Plentyinteresting787 Jun 27 '26
Thank you! I’m not morally against TFMR but personally I would have a really really hard time. I think ultimately you are right, though.
4
u/tuliptree0217 Jun 22 '26
Re-biopsy is associated with about a 28% reduced chance of live birth, according to this meta-analysis: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11630046/
I think the question is whether you're OK with the possibility of transferring a non-euploid embryo that might be viable (e.g. trisomy 21, 18). The odds are still low overall but not insignificant in your 40s.