THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN SELF-REPORTED RACE AND EMBRYONIC MOSAICISM

Abstract

There is evidence to suggest that race is associated with IVF outcomes; yet, little is known about its relationship with embryonic mosaicism. Our objective is to explore the relationship between self-reported race and embryonic aneuploidy and mosaicism for patients undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) with preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A). This was a retrospective, chart review study of patients at a tertiary care academic medical center with self-reported race data who underwent IVF with PGT-A from 2019-2020. Race was classified as Caucasian (C), Asian (A), African American (AA), or Multiracial/Other (M). PGT-A was performed at an external laboratory and the following numbers were reported for each cycle: embryos diagnosed, euploid embryos, aneuploid embryos, high (HL)/low (LL) level mosaic embryos, and whole or segmental mosaic embryos. After adjusting for age, the association between self-reported race and PGT-A results were analyzed using chi-square tests and regression modeling by Poisson distributions with p<0.05 to be considered significant Of the 493 patients with documented self-reported race who underwent IVF with PGT-A, 309 (62.7%) classified as C, 57 (11.6%) as A, 36 (7.3%) as AA, and 82 (16.6%) as M. A total of 2,470 embryos analyzed by PGT-A were included, with a mean number of 5.15±3.50 embryos diagnosed per patient. After adjusting for age, there was no statistically significant association between race and HL (p=0.27) or LL (p=0.17) mosaicism and whole (HL, p=0.48, LL, p=0.63) or segmental (HL, p=0.75, LL, p=0.08) mosaicism. Additionally, there was no difference in number of embryos biopsied, number of euploid embryos, or number of aneuploid embryos by race (Table 1). This is the first study to explore the association between self-reported race and embryonic mosaicism. Our findings do not support a significant relationship between race and embryonic mosaicism. Future research should employ more diverse patient populations to clarify potential relationships.