A Comparison of Pregnancy Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Donor Egg Single Embryo Transfers With and Without Preimplantation Genetic Testing

Abstract

Two of the many milestone developments in the field of assisted reproduction have been oocyte donation and preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A). Because it has been demonstrated that even young women produce a meaningful proportion of aneuploid embryos, screening out such abnormalities could potentially increase the efficacy of donor egg (DE) cycles. In this retrospective cohort study, we investigated the effect of PGT-A on DE cycle outcomes, including implantation rate (IR), spontaneous abortion rate (SABR), and ongoing pregnancy/live birth rate. We used fresh and frozen donor cycles not using PGT-A as comparison groups; all cases involved single embryo transfer. Data analysis revealed that PGT-A did not improve pregnancy outcome metrics in DE cycles, although there was a trend toward decreasing the SABR. There was a significant increase in IR with fresh cycles outperforming all frozen cycles. Overall, these results suggest that the benefits of performing PGT-A on embryos derived from young DEs may be limited and that there is an effect of the freezing process on pregnancy outcomes. These findings may provide useful insights into the science and practice of PGT-A across all of its applications.

Preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidies does not increase success rates in fresh oocyte donation cycles: a paired cohort study

“…No difference in euploidy rate among the interval of donor ages was observed in this study [16]. Furthermore, IVF cycle outcomes of younger women with no PGT-A indications do not seem to benefit from having it performed [2,9,17,18]. This lack of benefit also applies to young patients in the same age range as donors using autologous oocyte cycles.…”

“…Despite the high success rates of OD cycles, some patients still perform PGT-A on their embryos as they feel it will increase their chances of getting pregnant and delivering a healthy baby. Previous paired cohort studies have shown that genetic testing in oocyte donor-recipient cycles is not associated with increased successful pregnancy and birth rates [7][8][9][10]. However, the results of these studies are exclusively based on cryopreserved OD [8].…”

Preimplantation Genetic Testing: Where We Are Today

“…Donor eggs are usually collected from healthy, young, and fertile women, hoping that most eggs will have normal chromosomal integrity. When considering literature data presented in the previous chapters of this review, it can be affirmed that even young women produce a significant proportion of aneuploid embryos and screening out such abnormalities could potentially increase the efficacy of donor egg (DE) cycles [146].…”

“…These findings suggest that PGT-A might only be necessary in some specific situations, such as the need of a single embryo transfer. In 2019, Masbou et al [146] compared, in a retrospective cohort study, clinical outcomes in patients undergoing ED cycle with SET with and without pre-implantation genetic testing. This study revealed that PGT-A and subsequent euploid SET did not improve pregnancy outcome in DE cycles, although there was a trend toward decreasing of miscarriage rate.…”

Psychological Stress and Functional Endometrial Disorders: Update of Mechanism Insights

“…Studies have estimated that approximately 12% of married women have difficulty getting pregnant or maintaining a pregnancy ( 1 ). Even with the latest whole-genome sequencing technology to select the high quality embryo, the pregnancy rate for euploid embryo transfer has been found to be approximately 45% in the general infertility population ( 2 , 3 ) and approximately 60% in patients with donor egg embryos ( 4 ) undergoing in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET)practices. In recent years, researchers have focused on the role of endometrium in infertility, assuming that endometrial dysfunction might contribute to a large part of pregnancy failure.…”