Thursday 25 October 2007
Predictors of IVF pregnancy success identified
Source: Fertility and Sterility 2007; Advance online publication
Defining predictors of clinical pregnancy in fresh autologous IVF cycles.
MedWire News: Researchers have identified a trio of factors that are strongly predictive of clinical pregnancy in women undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
They report that pre-ovulatory progesterone levels, blastulation day, and embryo diameter “simultaneously” predict pregnancy in fresh autologous IVF.
Bruce Shapiro at the Fertility Center of Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of 361 blastocyst transfer cycles in 320 patients, 147 of which resulted in pregnancy. The majority of cycles used embryos resulting from intracytoplasmic sperm injection.
Shapiro et al examined 25 putative predictors, 14 of which were significantly associated with pregnancy in bivariate analysis. The three strongest predictors were pre-ovulatory serum progesterone <1.0 ng/ml, blastulation on day 5, and above-average blastocyst diameter (based on the largest transferred blastocyst relative to all blastocysts measured that day).
The final model, incorporating these three variables, was validated in a separate set of 219 blastocyst transfers. While blastocyst diameter was the strongest predictor of pregnancy, each variable provided highly significantly information even in the presence of the others, the authors remark.
“The inclusion of variables related to the rates of embryonic and endometrial development suggests that endometrial development should be properly synchronized with embryo development to achieve the highest pregnancy rates,” they comment.
Posted: 17 October 2007
© 2007 Current Medicine Group Ltd, a part of Springer Science+Business Media
http://www.orgyn.com/en/news/2007/We..._of_IVF_pr.asp
Predictors of IVF pregnancy success identified 
