Authors: A K Ludwig S Werner K Diedrich B Nitz M Ludwig
Publish Date: 2005/12/07
Volume: 273, Issue: 6, Pages: 346-354
Abstract
Background Pronuclear scoring helps to identify good quality embryos already at the pronuclear stage There are no data available however to demonstrate whether patients benefit from a higher pregnancy rate after pronuclear scoring Methods In a retrospective matched cohort study 338 cycles in which patients chose to score their oocytes at the pronuclear stage scoring group were compared with 338 cycles without scoring control group The cycles were matched for maternal age number of previous IVF and ICSI cycles cryopreservation yes/no and diagnosis of primary infertility Results The pregnancy rate was not significantly different between the scoring group and the control group 240 vs 210 NS in spite of more cycles with grade A embryos and a higher number of embryos transferred The presence of a Z1 pronuclear oocyte was found to be associated with the retrieval of more oocytes a higher fertilization rate and more grade A embryos as well as a nonsignificant increase in pregnancy rates 251 vs 188 Conclusions Benefit from pronuclear scoring seems to be small Apparently experienced biologists are able to select “goodquality” pronuclear oocytes in the same way they would do after scoring However the results might be biased by differences between the groups
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