Effect of women's age on embryo morphology, cleavage rate and competence-A multicenter cohort study

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 12; no. 4; p. e0172456
• Main Authors: Grøndahl, Marie Louise, Christiansen, Sofie Lindgren, Kesmodel, Ulrik Schiøler, Agerholm, Inge Errebo, Lemmen, Josephine Gabriela, Lundstrøm, Peter, Bogstad, Jeanette, Raaschou-Jensen, Morten, Ladelund, Steen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 19-04-2017; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Age; Age Factors; Biology and Life Sciences; Cell cycle; Chorionic Gonadotropin - blood; Chromosomes; Cleavage; Cohort analysis; Cohort Studies; Embryo transfer; Embryo Transfer - methods; Embryo, Mammalian - anatomy & histology; Embryo, Mammalian - physiology; Embryonic Development; Embryos; Female; Fertility; Fertilization in Vitro - statistics & numerical data; Gametocytes; Gene expression; Humans; In vitro fertilization; Male; Medicine and Health Sciences; Middle Aged; Morphology; Oocytes; Oocytes - cytology; Oocytes - physiology; Parameters; People and Places; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Rate; Sperm; Uterus; Women; Zygote - cytology; Zygote - physiology; Zygotes; Denmark
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172456

This multicenter cohort study on embryo assessment and outcome data from 11,744 IVF/ICSI cycles with 104,830 oocytes and 42,074 embryos, presents the effect of women's age on oocyte, zygote, embryo morphology and cleavage parameters, as well as cycle outcome measures corrected for confounding factors as center, partner's age and referral diagnosis. Cycle outcome data confirmed the well-known effect of women's age. Oocyte nuclear maturation and proportion of 2 pro-nuclear (2PN) zygotes were not affected by age, while a significant increase in 3PN zygotes was observed in both IVF and ICSI (p<0.0001) with increasing age. Maternal age had no effect on cleavage parameters or on the morphology of the embryo day 2 post insemination. Interestingly, initial hCG value after single embryo transfer followed by ongoing pregnancy was increased with age in both IVF (p = 0.007) and ICSI (p = 0.001) cycles. For the first time, we show that a woman's age does impose a significant footprint on early embryo morphological development (3PN). In addition, the developmentally competent embryos were associated with increased initial hCG values as the age of the women increased. Further studies are needed to elucidate, if this increase in initial hCG value with advancing maternal age is connected to the embryo or the uterus.