NCCRM’s North Carolina Reproductive Laboratories in Cary, NC has been awarded accreditation by the Accreditation Committee of the College of American Pathologists (CAP), based on results of a recent onsite inspection.
The laboratory’s director, High Hensleigh, Ph.D., was advised of this national recognition and congratulated for the excellence of services being provided. NCCRM’s laboratory is one of more than 7000 CAP-accredited laboratories worldwide.
The CAP Laboratory Accreditation Program, begun in the early 1960’s, is recognized by the federal government as being equal to or more stringent than the government’s own inspection program.
During the CAP accreditation process, inspectors examine the laboratory’s records and quality control procedures for the preceding two years. CAP inspectors also examine laboratory staff qualifications, as well as the laboratory’s equipment, facilities, safety program and record, in addition to the overall management of the laboratory. This stringent inspection program is designed to specifically ensure the highest standard of care for all laboratory patients.
NCCRM has one of the most experienced laboratory staff in the southeast with three fully qualified embryologists with advanced graduate and medical degrees. The on-site laboratory is unique and sets itself apart from other fertility centers in the Raleigh area because it operates continuously with a full-time laboratory director who constantly monitors all aspects of our patients’ treatments. Our embryologists performs all state of the art assisted reproductive procedures, including micromanipulation procedures such as sperm injection (ICSI) and assisted hatching, as well as embryo cryopreservation and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).
Our laboratory focus is to combine your eggs and sperm to achieve fertilization, culture the embryos until transfer and to select and transfer the embryos most likely to implant for a pregnancy. If any embryos develop that cannot be transferred back during the cycle, the extra embryos will be cryopreserved for use in a later transfer cycle.
Sperm preparations are done by wash and spin and swim-up, density gradient preparations, or other techniques as needed. Normally sperm are placed with the eggs overnight for fertilization. Frozen donor sperm may be used, or sperm may be obtained from the epididymis or testis in cases of servere male infertility. In these cases, sperm are injected into each ova by the intracytoplasmic injection (ICSI).
After fertilization your embryos are evaluated and graded for quality every 24 hours so the best quality embryos can be transferred at the 8 cell stage, three days after the egg retrieval. If the embryo cannot hatch out of its egg shell (zona pellucida) after transfer, pregnancy will not occur and assisted hatching may help in some cases. At the time of transfer, assisted hatching is done for women over 37 years of age on embryos with thick zonae, or for patients with repeated IVF failure. We use a laser to do assisted hatching.
Cryopreservation is done with a controlled rate freezer or by vitrification. Both are well proven techniques for freezing embryos. Cryopreservation can only be done with good quality embryos. About one out of three of our patients have embryos to freeze.
