The Research Department of Fertility Laboratories of Colorado represents our ongoing commitment to maintaining a high level of care for patients.

Successes of the Research Department over the past few years include the development of sequential culture media, which paved the way for routine blastocyst culture. The team was awarded the Prize Paper by SART at the annual ASRM meeting in 1997 for this pioneering work. Subsequently a new generation of culture media, G media Series III, has been developed which supersedes our previous laboratory methods. These new media have led to an improvement in embryo quality and have also improved the embryos’ ability to survive cryopreservation. Along with the new culture system the Department has developed a new method for freezing resultant blastocysts, leading to further increases in success rates.

Ongoing research, not yet in the routine clinical phase, includes the development of vitrification methods to cryopreserve oocyte and embryos. Vitrification differs from conventional freezing techniques in that it does not let the solutions around and within the oocytes and embryos form ice crystals. This is highly significant as the majority of injury to cells during freezing can be attributed to ice. Rather, vitrification uses novel cryoprotectants and extremely fast cooling rates to take the cells almost instantaneously to a glass-like structure, without the formation of ice. The ability to successfully cryopreserve human oocytes will revolutionize the treatment and logistics of both IVF and oocyte donation. Other research is focusing on the development of viability assays which can identify the embryos most likely to implant. This will pave the way to transferring just one blastocyst, with resultant high pregnancy rates. With the increased ability to cryopreserve remaining embryos, patients can return to have other blastocysts transferred for future pregnancy attempts.

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IVF Laboratory The cost of IVF laboratory services during an IVF cycle is $3,275. If ICSI is needed there is an additional cost of $2,600. If embryo freezing is required, there is an additional charge of $975. If Preimplantation Genetic Screening (PGS) is performed, the cost is extra and varies based on the lab performing the actual testing.

Clinical Laboratory The Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine physicians order diagnostic tests based on the individual needs of each patient. As a result, there is no specific package price for clinical laboratory testing. In most cases, however, the cost of clinical diagnostic and andrology lab testing ranges from $1325-$1550. The cost of clinical laboratory hormone testing during a routine IVF cycle is $1385. This includes estradiol, progesterone, and LH tests performed during oocyte maturation. For specific pricing questions, please call the business office at (303) 781-1085.