Multitasking Embedding for Embryo Blastocyst Grading Prediction (MEmEBG)
For IVF clinics, this automates subjective embryo grading, but the lack of quantitative results makes the contribution incremental.
The paper proposes a multitask embedding approach using a pretrained ResNet-18 to automate blastocyst grading from day-5 embryo images, predicting trophectoderm, inner cell mass, and expansion grades. Results show promise for consistent quality assessment, but no concrete numbers are provided.
Reliable evaluation of blastocyst quality is critical for the success of in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments. Current embryo grading practices primarily rely on visual assessment of morphological features, which introduces subjectivity, inter-embryologist variability, and challenges in standardizing quality assurance. In this study, we propose a multitask embedding-based approach for the automated analysis and prediction of key blastocyst components, including the trophectoderm (TE), inner cell mass (ICM), and blastocyst expansion (EXP). The method leverages biological and physical characteristics extracted from images of day-5 human embryos. A pretrained ResNet-18 architecture, enhanced with an embedding layer, is employed to learn discriminative representations from a limited dataset and to automatically identify TE and ICM regions along with their corresponding grades, structures that are visually similar and inherently difficult to distinguish. Experimental results demonstrate the promise of the multitask embedding approach and potential for robust and consistent blastocyst quality assessment.