Reproductive outcome of women 43 years and beyond undergoing ART treatment with their own oocytes in two Connecticut university programs.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to analyze the outcomes of IVF/ICSI cycles in women aged 43 and beyond.

Methods: Retrospective analysis of clinical pregnancy and live birth rates in 168 fresh, non donor, ART cycles performed in two Connecticut university IVF programs.

Results: In women of 43 and 44 years the overall clinical pregnancy and live birth rates were 8.

Reproductive efficiency of women over the age of 40 and the low risk of multiple pregnancies.

Infertile patients over the age of 40 are generally considered to have a low chance of success with assisted cycles despite high numbers of embryos transferred. The risk of multiple pregnancy in this group of patients is not well established. The present study determined the rate of embryos that fail to produce a live birth and the rate of multiple pregnancies in a cohort of women over the age of 40 undergoing IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles, utilizing Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology reported cycle outcomes from national summaries as well as from two university-based IVF centres.

Meiotic arrest in human oocytes is maintained by a Gs signaling pathway.

In mammalian oocytes, the maintenance of meiotic prophase I arrest prior to the surge of LH that stimulates meiotic maturation depends on a high level of cAMP within the oocyte. In mouse and rat, the cAMP is generated in the oocyte, and this requires the activity of a constitutively active, Gs-linked receptor, GPR3 or GPR12, respectively. To examine if human oocyte meiotic arrest depends on a similar pathway, we used RT-PCR and Western blotting to look at whether human oocytes express the same components for maintaining arrest as rodent oocytes.

Influence of embryo quality and number of previous cycles on pregnancy and multiple pregnancy rates in women aged 35 to 37 years who received two or three embryos.

Women aged 35-37 years undergoing IVF-ET with fresh embryos at a university infertility center were analyzed to evaluate factors useful in determining whether two or three embryos should be transferred in this age group. Embryo quality and number, but not number of previous failed cycles, were important in determining outcome, and all triplet pregnancies could have been avoided at our program in this age group by limiting the transfer to two good-quality embryos, without reducing pregnancy rates.