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Pregnancy and neonatal outcomes of artificial oocyte activation in patients undergoing frozen–thawed embryo transfer: a 6-year population-based retrospective study

  • Gynecologic Endocrinology and Reproductive Medicine
  • Published:
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate the impact of artificial oocyte activation (AOA) in pregnancy and neonatal outcomes in infertile patients undergoing cryopreserved embryo transfer.

Method

This retrospective study included 5686 patients’ transferred embryos from routine intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and 194 patients’ transferred embryos from ICSI combined with AOA (ICSI-AOA) from January 2011 to December 2016. Pregnancy and neonatal outcomes of couples undergoing routine ICSI or ICSI-AOA were analyzed before and after propensity score matching. Artificial oocyte activation was performed with ionomycin.

Results

The pregnancy outcomes showed no significant difference in the rates of biochemical pregnancy, clinical pregnancy, implantation, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, multiple pregnancy, and live births between the routine ICSI and ICSI-AOA groups before and after propensity score matching, respectively. The assessment of neonatal outcomes showed no statistically significant differences in the birth defect rate, birth weight, gestational age, preterm birth rate, early-neonatal death rate, and fetal sex ratio between the two groups, and similar results were also observed in the two matched cohorts.

Conclusion

Artificial oocyte activation with ionomycin does not adversely affect pregnancy and neonatal outcomes in patients undergoing frozen–thawed embryo transfer, which is beneficial to clinicians counseling patients on the risks of artificial oocyte activation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Meiping Sheng and Suqun Zhang for following up with the patients and auditing the data.

Funding

This work was supported by The National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers 81771649 and 81571486).

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Author notes

  1. Bin Li, Yiwen Zhou and Zhiguang Yan contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Assisted Reproduction, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200011, China

    Bin Li, Zhiguang Yan, Menghui Li, Renfei Cai, Yonglun Fu, Qingqing Hong, Hui Long, Mingru Yin, Tong Du, Yun Wang, Yanping Kuang, Zheng Yan & Qifeng Lyu

  2. Department of Assisted Reproduction, Shanghai East Hospital, Shanghai Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200120, China

    Yiwen Zhou & Songguo Xue

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  1. Bin Li
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Contributions

ZY and QL were involved in the conception and design, and revision of the article. BL, YZ, and ZY analyzed the data and completed the manuscript writing. SX, YW, RC, YF, QH, ML, and YK completed the collection of clinical data. TD, HL, and MY conducted the statistical analysis.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zheng Yan or Qifeng Lyu.

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Li, B., Zhou, Y., Yan, Z. et al. Pregnancy and neonatal outcomes of artificial oocyte activation in patients undergoing frozen–thawed embryo transfer: a 6-year population-based retrospective study. Arch Gynecol Obstet 300, 1083–1092 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-019-05298-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-019-05298-3

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