The following is a summary of “High sperm DNA fragmentation increased embryo aneuploidy rate in patients undergoing preimplantation genetic testing,” published in the December 2023 issue of Reproductive Bio Medicine Online by Fu, et al.
Is there a link between a high sperm DNA fragmentation (SDF) rate and a high rate of fetal aneuploidy in people who are getting an intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and preimplantation genetic testing (PGT)?
For a study, researchers sought to look back at 426 couples with normal karyotypes who had ICSI-PGT at the authors’ center from March 2017 to March 2021. The sperm chromatin structure test was used to measure SDF. Based on the cut-off values found by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) graph, the population was split into two groups: low SDF and high SDF. A 1:1 ratio propensity score matching (PSM) method was used to eliminate any confusing factors.
Then, a generalized linear mixed model was used to examine the link between SDF and the fetal aneuploidy rate. The ROC graph showed that 30% was the cutoff. After PSM, 132 couples were included. The high SDF group (>30%) had a higher rate of SDF (40.74% ± 9.78% vs. 15.54% ± 7.86%, P < 0.001) and a higher rate of embryo aneuploidy (69.36% vs. 53.96%, P < 0.001) than the low SDF group (<30%). The two groups had the same rates of pronuclear fertilization, cleavage, high-quality embryos at day 3, blastocysts, biochemical pregnancy, clinical pregnancy, miscarriages, live births, cesarean sections, singletons, and low birth weights (P > 0.05). After PSM, SDF levels above 30% were significantly linked to a higher rate of aneuploidy in embryos, even after all other factors were considered (adjusted odds ratio 1.70, 95% CI 1.00–2.88, P = 0.049).
When partners with normal karyotypes went through PGT, SDF levels above 30% were linked to a higher rate of aneuploid embryos. However, it did not affect the embryos or their health after the transfer of euploid embryos.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1472648323004510
