The effect of surgical glove powder on cleavage of two-cell mouse embryos in an in vitro fertilization programme.

The effect of surgical glove powder on the development of early mouse embryos was studied. Embryos from F1 hybrid mice (C57 B1/6 X CBA) were suspended in Whittingham's T6 growth medium with 10% human serum, using Petri dishes (Falcon 3001). Contamination was brought about by a sterile, powdered, surgical glove touching the surface of the growth medium for less than a second in group I, and in group II the same procedure was followed but the glove was rinsed beforehand with sterile, four times distilled water and air-dried. In the control group (group III) no contamination with surgical glove powder occurred. In group I only 9 of 137 embryos (7%) reached the blastocyst stage, in contrast with 110 of 196 (56%) in group II and 258 of 287 (90%) in group III. The differences in results between groups I and III, groups I and II, and groups II and III were found to be statistically significant (P less than 0,001) by the chi-square test. It is concluded that surgical gloves are a potent inhibitor of early embryonic growth. In an in vitro fertilization programme including follicle aspiration and embryo transfer, contamination of embryos with these gloves should be avoided at all costs.