Intra-age, intercenter, and intercycle differences in chromosome abnormalities in oocytes.

Objective: To determine the extent of intra-age and intercycle variations in the frequency of first polar body aneuploidy in two consecutive cycles of oocyte retrieval undertaken by the same patient within 1 year.
Design: Retrospective study.
Setting: Fertility centers.
Patient(s): Infertile couples undergoing IVF.
Intervention(s): Patients underwent two consecutive cycles of preimplantation genetic screening through first polar body biopsy within 1 year.
Main Outcome Measure(s): Meiosis I aneuploidy.
Result(s): A total of 226 patients underwent 452 cycles of preimplantation genetic screening. Differences within age groups were wide, with 0-100% of oocytes being chromosomally normal in all age groups. Euploidy rates between centers were significantly different (48% vs. 25%). Intercycle differences for the same patient were also wide (0-100%), but with 68.5% of patients having less than ±2 euploid eggs of difference between cycles.
Conclusion(s): Although euploidy rate decreased on average with advancing maternal age, the high intra-age and intercenter variation in oocyte chromosome abnormalities emphasize the difficulty in estimating how many euploid oocytes a specific woman will have. This may have repercussions for fertility preservation where a defined number of eggs are currently frozen just based on maternal age.
(Copyright © 2012 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)