Extended embryo culture is effective for patients of an advanced maternal age

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of extended embryo culture in advanced maternal age (AMA) patients (37–43 years). In this retrospective analysis, 21,301 normally fertilized zygotes from 4952 couples were cultured until the blastocyst stage. Blastocyst development, including kinetics and morphology, transfer rate, implantation and live birth rates, were measured. In AMA patients, the blastocyst rate was significantly decreased as compared to that in younger women. On day 5, blastocysts underwent growth retardation in AMA patients, which was highlighted by a decreased rate of full/expanded blastocysts. Organization of the cells (trophectoderm and inner cell mass) was unaffected by age. However, in AMA patients, a ‘good’ morphology blastocyst had a decreased probability to implant compared with an ‘average’ morphology blastocyst in younger women. While the rates of blastocyst transfer and useful blastocysts were similar to younger patients, in AMA patients, both implantation and live birth rates were significantly reduced. Our results support the idea that extended embryo culture is not harmful for AMA patients. However, embryo selection allowed by such culture is not powerful enough to avoid chromosomal abnormalities in the developed blastocysts and therefore cannot compensate for the effect of a woman’s age.