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Assessment of Oocyte Quality

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In Vitro Fertilization

Abstract

Assessment of oocyte morphology and determination of its correlation with quality/viability and the clinical outcome are difficult tasks, since the underlying mechanisms that change the appearance are multifactorial and complex. More than half of the oocytes collected can contain at least one morphological abnormality, and this may be correlated with the asynchrony between nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation of the MII oocyte which plays an important role on its viability and the clinical outcome. Morphological variations of the oocytes may also result from other intrinsic factors such as age and genetic defects or extrinsic factors such as stimulation protocols, culture conditions, and nutrition. Conflicting results are published in the literature regarding the effect of morphological variations of the oocyte on embryo development and implantation. This chapter will review the correlation of morphological abnormalities of the MII oocyte and the clinical outcome and the effect on genetic disorders, discuss the predictive value of specific abnormalities, and examine whether any of these parameters can be utilized in all the scoring systems applied in in vitro fertilization (IVF) laboratories.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. VKE American Hospital of Istanbul, Assisted Reproduction Unit, Istanbul, Turkey

    Basak Balaban

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  1. Basak Balaban
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Correspondence to Basak Balaban .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Reproductive Biology Associates – Prelude, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Zsolt Peter Nagy

  2. Astra Fertility Group, Mississauga, ON, Canada

    Alex C. Varghese

  3. Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Ashok Agarwal

Review Questions

Review Questions

  1. 1.

    How can the normal morphology be defined for mature MII human oocytes?

  2. 2.

    Which type of morphological deviations can a mature MII oocyte have?

  3. 3.

    What are the cytoplasmic abnormalities a MII oocyte may consist of?

  4. 4.

    Which type of cytoplasmic abnormalities is shown to affect the clinical outcome?

  5. 5.

    What are the extracytoplasmic abnormalities of the MII oocyte defined in the literature?

  6. 6.

    Can any type of extracytoplasmic abnormality affect the clinical outcome?

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Balaban, B. (2019). Assessment of Oocyte Quality. In: Nagy, Z., Varghese, A., Agarwal, A. (eds) In Vitro Fertilization. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43011-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43011-9_13

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