THE IMPACT OF THE WOMANS AGE ON THE SUCCESS OF STANDARD AND DONOR IN-VITRO FERTILIZATION

Objective: To study the effect of the age of the woman who provides th e oocytes or who receives the embryos on results of IVF-ET. Design: Hi storical cohort study. Multivariate regression analysis was used to st udy the age effect continuously and after adjustment for confounding. Setting: Patients of the University of Southern California, Los Angele s, California. Patient(s): Couples who underwent standard (n = 277) or donor TVF-ET (n = 294) between January 1991 and July 1995. Interventi on(s): One cycle of standard or donor TVF-ET. Main Outcome Measure(s): Successive IVF outcomes from number of oocytes to ongoing pregnancy a nd several measures of pregnancy loss. Result(s): The number of oocyte s decreased with aging of the oocyte provider. More women who received oocytes from donors aged 20 to 23 years had at least one good embryo transferred than women who received oocytes from older donors. The age of the woman who received the embryos had no effect on IVF outcomes. In women > 40 years who underwent standard IVF, the probability of pre gnancy decreased. No such relationships were observed for donor IVF, b ut all the oocyte donors were younger. Conclusion(s): An age effect fo r ongoing pregnancy was only found in women > 40 years who underwent s tandard IVF independent of the lower number of oocytes and suggests de creasing oocyte quality. (C) 1997 by American Society for Reproductive Medicine.