Improved Prediction of Clinical Pregnancy Using Artificial Intelligence with Enhanced Inner Cell Mass and Trophectoderm Images

Abstract

Abstract This study aimed to assess the performance of an artificial intelligence (AI) model for predicting clinical pregnancy using enhanced inner cell mass (ICM) and trophectoderm (TE) images. In this retrospective study, we included static images of 2,555 day-5-blastocysts from seven in vitro fertilization centers in South Korea. The main outcome of the study was the predictive capability of the model to detect clinical pregnancies (gestational sac). Compared to the original embryo images, the use of enhanced ICM and TE images improved the average area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the AI model from 0.716 to 0.741. Additionally, a gradient-weighted class activation mapping analysis demonstrated that the AI model utilizing the enhanced ICM and TE images was able to extract features from crucial areas of the embryo, including the ICM and TE, in 99% (506/512) of the cases. In contrast, the AI model trained on the original images focused on the main areas in only 86% (438/512) of the cases. Our results highlight the potential efficacy of utilizing ICM- and TE-enhanced embryo images in AI models for the prediction of clinical pregnancy.