About this trial
Infertile patients attending IVF treatment at the Centre of Assisted Reproduction and Embryology, Queen Mary Hospital and Kwong Wah Hospital will be recruited during ovarian stimulation for IVF. Subsequently, they will be randomly assigned on the day of oocyte retrieval by a laboratory staff into one of the following two groups: (1) the microfluidic chip group and (2) the density gradient group for sperm preparation and subsequent use in fertilization. Other IVF procedures will be the same as our usual practice. Both patients and clinicians were blinded from the group allocation i.e. a double blind study. The primary outcome is the cumulative live birth rate defined as the number of pregnancies leading to live birth within 6 months of randomisation.
Eligibility criteria
Qualifiers
Infertile women aged <43 years at the time of ovarian stimulation for IVF
Disqualifiers
Women undergoing preimplantation genetic testing monogenic diseases, structural rearrangement of chromosomes or aneuploidy;
Male factor requiring surgical sperm retrieval such as microscopic epididymal sperm aspiration and testicular sperm extraction;
Use of donor oocytes and spermatozoa;
Submucosal fibroid or hydrosalpinx shown on pelvic scanning and not surgically treated;
Trial design
Treatments tested in this trial
- Microfluidic chip
- Density-gradient centrifugation
Treatment groups
Sponsors and collaborators
Professor Ernest Hung-Yu Ng
Lead sponsor
The University of Hong Kong
Sponsor institution