Background: Although many advances have been made in the field of assisted reproduction, the clinical outcomes remain less than desirable. Oxidative stress has been recently blamed on both male and female partners.
Aim of the work: To study the effect of oxidative stress in semen, follicular fluid and embryo culture medium on the outcome of assisted reproduction.
Patients and methods:Fifty couples with unexplained infertility were subjected to a combined treatment of IVF and ICSI. Oxidative stress was evaluated by measuring the oxidative-reduction potential (ORP) in the semen sample, follicular fluid pool and spent culture medium of individually IVF cultured embryos
Results: ORP in native semen was found to be a good predictor of fertilization and clinical pregnancy in IVF with a cut-off point of 1.57 and 0.75mV/106 sperm/ml, respectively. There was a positive and highly significant correlation between ORP levels in follicular fluid pool and the fertilization rate(r= 0.4217; P=0.002288), but there was no statistically significant difference between ORP in the follicular fluid pool of women who became pregnant and those who did not (P = 0.997425). In addition, the mean ORP in spent culture medium of women who became pregnant (215.78 mV/ml ± 38.52) was lower than in those who did not become pregnant (229.22 mV/ml ± 31.56) but the difference was also not statistically significant (P = 0.3170).
Conclusions: ORP in native semen and spent culture medium in IVF are good predictors of fertilization and clinical pregnancy and that ORP in the follicular fluid is not.