The Presence of Immature GV− Stage Oocytes during IVF/ICSI Is a Marker of Poor Oocyte Quality: A Pilot Study

• Main Authors: Pia Astbury, Goutham N. Subramanian, Jessica Greaney, Chris Roling, Jacqui Irving, Hayden A. Homer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-01-01
• Series: Medical Sciences
• Subjects: immature oocyte; oocyte; dna damage; oocyte quality; ivf
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3271/8/1/4

Here we investigate whether the presence of germinal vesicle-stage oocytes (GV&#8722; oocytes) reflects poor oocyte developmental competence (or quality). This was a prospective, non-randomised, cohort pilot-study involving 60 patients undergoing in vitro fertilization/ intracytoplasmic sperm injection for whom complete pregnancy outcome data were available. Patients in whom GV&#8722; oocytes were retrieved (GV+) at transvaginal oocyte retrieval (TVOR) were compared with those from whom no GVs were retrieved (GV&#8722;). We found that GV+ (<i>n</i> = 29) and GV&#8722; (<i>n</i> = 31) patients were similarly aged (35.4 vs. 36.4 years; <i>p</i> = 0.446). GV+ patients had a mean of 2.41 &#177; 2.03 GVs and comparable yields of MII oocytes to GV&#8722; patients (11 &#177; 6.88 vs. 8.26 &#177; 4.84; <i>p</i> = 0.077). Compared with GV&#8722; patients, GV+ patients had markedly lower implantation rates (11.8% vs. 30.2%; <i>p</i> = 0.022) as well as oocyte utilisation rates for clinical pregnancy (2.3% vs. 6.8%; <i>p</i> = 0.018) and live-birth (1.9% vs. 5.7%; <i>p</i> = 0.029). DNA damage levels measured using &#947;H2AX immunostaining were not different in oocytes from women &lt;36 years versus those &#8805;36 years (<i>p</i> = 0.606). Thus, patients who have GV&#8722; stage oocytes at TVOR exhibit poor oocyte quality reflected in reduced per-oocyte pregnancy success rates and uniformly high levels of oocyte DNA damage.