The Effect of Poor Fertilization vs. Poor Oocyte Recruitment on Successful Outcomes

Abstract

We intended to determine the chance of IVF success for cycles in which few embryos are available due to limited oocyte yield or poor fertilization. There are two general situations that result in the availability of few embryos at the time of transfer: 1. Retrieval of few oocytes followed by relatively good fertilization. 2. Retrieval of many oocytes followed by poor fertilization. We sought to determine whether the cause of a low number of embryos available for transfer provides an indicator of outcome and therefore could be used to adjust the number of embryos transferred.