Joaquin Llacer from Instituto Bernabeu (Alicante) offered one of the most brilliant and awesome presentations at ESHRE Meeting held at Helsinki this month. It is admitted that embryo aneuploidy frequency increases with women’s age. According to data from Instituto Bernabeu as much as 40,6% of analyzed embryos showed some type of aneuploidy. Overall, this means that the fate of 4 out of 10 embryos will be either no implantation or a miscarriage. As expected, the aneuploidy rate increased with age. The rate was higher than 80% among women aged 42 and older. No news, here.
But the relevance of Joaquin Llacer`s presentation was the high and in someway surprising high rate of aneuploidies observed among women younger than 22. More than 40% of embryos from women included in this young range were faulty from a chromosomal point of view. This means that even in an egg donation program it is worthwhile to analyze the embryos to be transferred.
In summary, two lessons may be learned from this outstanding presentation. First, the transfer of embryos without a chromosomal analysis (i.e. without performing a genetic screening) will (should) be reduced in the future taking into account that as much as 4 out of 10 embryos may be defective (so, 6 out of 10 useless embryo transfers could be avoided). Second, and more surprisingly, even in the context of an egg donation program genetic screening may be suitable. Anyway, if an egg donation treatment is proposed, it is advisable to choose donors older than 21.
