Abstract

A retrospective cohort analysis of patients undergoing IVF cycles at an academic IVF center was performed to test the hypothesis that male age may influence aneuploidy rates in first trimester pregnancy losses. All patients had a first trimester pregnancy loss followed by evacuation of the pregnancy and karyotyping of the abortus. Couples undergoing anonymous donor oocyte ART cycles (n = 50) and 23 couples with female age less than 30 years undergoing autologous oocyte ART cycles were included. The oocyte age was less than 30 in both groups; thereby allowing the focus to be on the reproductive potential of the aging male. The main outcome measure was the effect of paternal age on aneuploidy rate. No increase in aneuploidy rate was noted with increasing paternal age (<40 years = 25.0%; 40-50 years = 38.8%; >50 years = 25.0%). Although there was a significant difference in the male partner age between oocyte recipients and young patients using autologous oocytes (33.7   7.6 vs. 41.5   6.8) (p <0.0001), no difference in aneuploidy rate was observed between these groups (30.0% vs. 26.1%) (p=0.66; RR=0.93; 95% CI (0.68-1.27)). While controlling for female age by using donor oocyte patients, the study’s preliminary data support that paternal age does not affect aneuploidy rates.

Key words: Male age, in vitro fertilization, donor oocyte, aneuploidy rates, cytogenetics.