5 replies to this topic

[pearljam1997]

Can anyone share any insight into how vfc's grading system compares to others? It's difficult trying to gauge what's great, good and so so. I mean obviously a 20 is great but what's a 17 and 18?!

And now that I'm really thinking about it I guess it'll be hard to compare the grades once you start throwing in the various stages they're at....like we have one grade 18 cavitating morula and a 17 expanded blast from day 5 and then there's
3 day 6's, one at grade 17+ expanded blast, grade 17 blast, and a 17 early early blast.

Thanks to anyone that can help! If there's anything that can be compared lol

[dawnkey]

From what I understand, a 20 is perfect, so rare... a 19 is excellent, 18 is very good, 17 is good, 16 is average. Anything 16 or below, they more than likely won't freeze. But, that's just my understanding. I don't know how they grade, but I think it's 20 points they are looking at - the more of the 20 points of criteria the embryo meets - the better score it gets. Does that even make sense? lol. 

[SunshineTTC]

18-20 have same pregnancy rates.  17 still pretty good.  16 they try to tell you is "average", but that's obviously some code word for "shi!tty".  Usually 16 they won't freeze, and 15 they won't even transfer.  Never heard of anyone having an embryo (that actually fertilized and divided) graded lower than 15.  No idea why it's a scale out of 20, very deceiving.  Really it's an exponential/non-linear scale out of 5.

[pearljam1997]

I wonder why they don't just use a scale out of 5 like some do or the typical number and two letters lol so confusing!

Yeah I've never seen lower than 15 either.

I was told once that their 17's had the same pregnancy rates as their 18 and 19's but when I asked again recently they said "we can't give me exact pregnancy rates as we don't break down our stats lIke that. However we have get people pregnant with 17's ALL the time. They are really nice quality embryos."

So that goes with what you said sunshine maybe I'll email the embryologist again.

[lily84]

I found it a bit confusing too. With cattle, we grade embryos as 1's, 2's and 3's on day 7. 1 is the highest quality embryo you can get. 2's have some slight imperfection(s) but still can be frozen, with expected lower pregnancy rates. 3's can't be frozen as they have an incomplete membrane however, they can be implanted fresh into surrogates with decent success.

[Saffy]

"16 they try to tell you is "average", but that's obviously some code word for "shi!tty"."
Sunshine-this made me laugh out loud. So true!