age as a predictor of embryo quality regardless of the quantitative ovarian response

background: one determining factor of a successful ivf cycle is embryo quality. the aim of the present prospective study was to evaluate the associations between markers of ovarian reserve and ovarian response and embryo quality materials and methods: one hundred and twenty infertile women, aged 21-44 years, undergoing routine exploration during an unstimulated cycle that preceded art at our center were studied prospectively, from february 2011 to december 2014. descriptive parameters and patient characteristics were reported as mean (sd) or median (range) depending on the distribution. the student’s t-test was performed for continuous variables, wilcoxon and pearson’s test were used where appropriate for variables not distributed and fisher’s test was performed for categorical variables. p <.05 was considered statistically significant. results: overall, at the time of the investigation, patients had a mean age of 33.03 ± 4.15 years old. on cycle day 3, serum amh level was 3.50 ± 1.54 ng/ml; serum fsh level was 6.29 ± 1.53 mui/ ml; at baseline, women had 16.57 ± 7.0 antral follicles. the mean collected oocytes was 11.80 ± 5.25; embryo i +ii 2.46 ± 2.11. a greater number of embryos i + ii was observed in young patients. when the 120 patients evaluated was observed a significant relationship of age with fsh (r = 0.24 p =0.01), age with amh (r = -0.22 p =0.02), age with collected oocytes (r = -0.23 p= 0.03), age with embryo i+ii (r = -0.22 p=0.03). also was observed a significant relationship of afc with amh (r =0.29 p =0.01), afc with the number of embryo transferred (r = -0.18 p =0.03), afc with the total dose of drugs (r = -0.23 p=0.03). significant relationship also was observed of fsh with total dose of drugs (r = 0.19 p =0.02). other significant relationship was of amh with the number of collected oocytes (r = 0.38 p =0.01), amh with the number of metaphase ii oocytes (r = 0.35 p=0.01), amh with the number of embryo (r = 0.19 p =0.04), amh with the total dose of drugs (r = -0.25 p = 0.01) conclusion: commonly used clinical markers of ovarian reserve are reflective of the ovarian reserve and outcomes measures of art and age is the best predictor of embryo quality.