Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar;305(3):749-756.
doi: 10.1007/s00404-021-06224-2. Epub 2021 Sep 6.

Blastocyst versus cleavage transfers: who benefits?

Enver Kerem Dirican  1 , Safak Olgan  2 , Mehmet Sakinci  2 , Mete Caglar  2
Affiliations

Blastocyst versus cleavage transfers: who benefits?

Enver Kerem Dirican et al. Arch Gynecol Obstet. 2022 Mar.

Abstract

Purpose: This retrospective cohort study determined the relative efficacy of blastocyst and cleavage-stage transfers in patients with differing numbers of zygotes.

Methods: A total of 1116 women whose embryo transfers were planned independently of patient characteristics were included. Cleavage-stage (D3) and blastocyst-stage (D5) transfer outcomes were analyzed per number of zygotes. The D5 group included transfer cancellations as the intention-to-treat population. The effect of the embryo transfer date on the clinical outcomes (clinical pregnancy and implantation rates) was analyzed using multivariate logistic regression.

Results: Among the patients, 584 and 532 underwent D3 and D5 embryo transfers, respectively. The clinical pregnancy rates were significantly higher in D5 patients with ≥ 6 zygotes (25.7% vs 48.3%). The multivariate logistic regression analysis for clinical pregnancy did not show significant differences between the blastocyst and cleavage-stage transfers in patients with ≤ 5 zygotes (0.874 [0.635-1.204]). Compared to the cleavage-stage, blastocyst-stage transfers for patients with ≥ 6 zygotes resulted in a three-fold increase in clinical pregnancy rates (3.122 [1.797-5.425]).

Conclusion: Blastocyst transfers were not inferior to cleavage-stage embryo transfers among patients with few zygotes and were preferable for patients with several zygotes.

Keywords: Blastocyst-stage transfer; Cleavage-stage transfer; Clinical pregnancy; Implantation; Zygote.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Cutting R (2018) Single embryo transfer for all. Best Pract Res Clin Obstet Gynaecol 53:30–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpobgyn.2018.07.001 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wang X, Du M, Guan Y, Wang B, Zhang J, Liu Z (2017) Comparative neonatal outcomes in singleton births from blastocyst transfers or cleavage-stage embryo transfers: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Reprod Biol Endocrinol 15(1):36. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12958-017-0255-4 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. De Vos A, Dos Santos-Ribeiro S, Tournaye H, Verheyen G (2020) Birthweight of singletons born after blastocyst-stage or cleavage-stage transfer: analysis of a data set from three randomized controlled trials. J Assist Reprod Genet 37(1):127–132. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-019-01641-4 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Li W, Xue X, Zhao W, Ren A, Zhuo W, Shi J (2017) Blastocyst transfer is not associated with increased unfavorable obstetric and perinatal outcomes compared with cleavage-stage embryo transfer. Gynecol Endocrinol 33(11):857–860. https://doi.org/10.1080/09513590.2017.1332175 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Marconi N, Raja EA, Bhattacharya S, Maheshwari A (2019) Perinatal outcomes in singleton live births after fresh blastocyst-stage embryo transfer: a retrospective analysis of 67 147 IVF/ICSI cycles. Hum Reprod 34(9):1716–1725. https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/dez133 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources