BackgroundThe standard morphological evaluation has been widely used for embryo selection, but it has limitations. This study aimed to investigate the correlation between morphologic grading and euploidy rate of in vitro fertilization (IVF) preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) and compare the pregnancy rates in young and old ages.MethodsThis is a retrospective study using the medical records of patients who underwent IVF procedures with PGS between January 2016 and February 2017 in a single center. The embryo grades were categorized into 4 groups: excellent, good, fair, and poor. Basic characteristics, euploidy rates, clinical pregnancy (CP) rates and ongoing pregnancy rates were analyzed.ResultsThe excellent group had significantly higher rate of euploid embryos than fair group (47.82% vs. 29.33%; P = 0.023) and poor group (47.82% vs. 29.60%; P = 0.005). When the four groups were recategorized into two groups (excellent and good vs. fair and poor), they also showed significant difference in euploidy rates (44.52% vs. 29.53%; P = 0.002). When the patients were divided into two groups by age 35, the CP rates for those under and over 35 years old were 44.74% and 47.83%, respectively, which showed no significant difference.ConclusionThe significant differences among the euploidy rates of different morphologic embryo grades demonstrated the positive correlations between the morphologic grading of the embryo and the euploidy rate of PGS. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the younger and older patients' CP rates. These findings emphasize the fact that old age patients might benefit from PGS whatever the indication of PGS is.

The use of preimplantation diagnosis for sex determination and detection of exon deletion means that unaffected babies can be born to parents suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). However, those who do not have exon deletion should also be considered for further investigation. A new method, known as linkage analysis, has been developed to diagnose the presence of non-deletion DMD in preimplantation embryos. Linkage analysis uses informative intragenic and flanking markers to track the chromosome bearing the mutated gene. The present study reports the analysis of two polymorphic sites, in blastomeres biopsied from embryos from a female carrier of DMD. A single male embryo was obtained who had inherited alternate maternal alleles to the woman's affected surviving son, and this embryo was transferred.

LC supplementation in culture media improved human embryo quality and eventually achieved better pregnancy outcomes.