Evaluation of day one embryo quality and IVF outcome – a comparison of two scoring systems

BACKGROUND The aim of our retrospective study was to compare the clinical usefulness of two non-invasive embryo scoring systems based either on a simplified pronuclear morphology of the zygote or on early cleavage rate, as well as their combination, for the selection of embryos with the best implantation potential in embryo transfer (ET). METHODS Over a period of five years, the quality of 2708 embryos from 364 IVF cycles in women under the age of 39 years was assessed using these scoring systems in a university assisted reproduction centre. ET was always performed on day 3 of cultivation. The outcome of ETs of 702 embryos scored in the respective systems or their combination was retrospectively analyzed in terms of biochemical (bPR) and clinical pregnancy rates (cPR) and implantation rate (IR). Mann-Whitney U test and t-test for differences between relative values were used, p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS There was no difference in outcome parameters in 109 cycles where only Pattern "0" zygotes, according to our simplified pronuclear morphology classification, were transferred and 140 cycles where only "other" pattern zygotes were transferred, regardless of their cleavage rate. On the contrary, significantly greater cPR and IR (p = 0.003 and p = 0.006, respectively) were achieved in 120 cycles where only early cleavage (EC) embryos were transferred compared with 152 cycles where only non early cleavage (NEC) embryos were transferred regardless of their pronuclear morphology. The best outcome in terms of cPR (56%) and IR (43%) was found in 50 cycles when Pattern "0" and EC embryos only were used for transfer. CONCLUSION The results indicate that early cleavage is a better independent marker of implantation potential than zygote morphology. The best outcome can be achieved if both embryo scoring systems are used jointly and the embryo is classified as EC and Pattern "0".