ArticleBMC pregnancy and childbirth2022
Increased blastomere number is associated with higher live birth rate in day 3 embryo transfer.
Article in BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Developmental trajectories from day 2 to day 3 refine ranking and selection of cleavage-stage embryos.Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics · 2026Article
- Impact of Day-3 embryo cell number on pregnancy, obstetric and perinatal outcomes in frozen-thawed single blastocyst transfer cycles.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Delayed Second Cell Cleavage in Human Early Embryo Is Associated With Adverse Developmental Competence and Pregnancy Outcomes, Even If the Third Cleavage Completes on Time.Maternal-fetal medicine (Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.) · 2026Article
- Commentary: Association between pretransfer cleavage-stage blastomere dynamics and pregnancy outcomes in fresh single embryo transfer cycles: a retrospective cohort study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Impact of rapidly cleaving embryos on blastocyst formation and single-blastocyst transfer outcomes.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Prediction of blastocyst development using cleavage-stage embryo metrics and maternal age.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The Istanbul consensus update: a revised ESHRE/ALPHA consensus on oocyte and embryo static and dynamic morphological assessment†,‡.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Association between pretransfer cleavage-stage blastomere dynamics and pregnancy outcomes in fresh single embryo transfer cycles: a retrospective cohort study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2025Article
- Effect of maternal age, embryo number and quality on pregnancy outcome during frozen embryo transfer cycle.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2025Article
- Effect of day 3 embryo cell number on the pregnancy and neonatal outcomes of day 4 single embryo transfer from fresh cycles.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2024Article
- Effect of blastomere cell number on ART outcome of fresh single day 3 embryo transfer.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2024Article
- Effect of Day 3 cell number on the live birth rate of vitrified-warmed Day 5 single blastocyst transfer in young women.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2024Article
- Developmental competence and neonatal outcomes of nonpronuclear zygotes following single vitrified-warmed blastocyst transfers using propensity score matching analysis.Archives of gynecology and obstetrics · 2024Article
- The association between pregnancy outcomes and frozen-thawed embryo transfer cycles based on D3 cell count in high-quality blastocysts.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTo study the relationship between blastomere number and pregnancy outcomes of day 3 embryo transfers.
methodsThis retrospective cohort study included 2237 fresh single day 3 embryo transfer cycles from October 2013 to November 2020. Patients were divided into six groups according to the blastomere number on day 3: ≤ 6-cell (n = 100), 7-cell (n = 207), 8-cell (n = 1522), 9-cell (n = 187), 10-cell (n = 91) and ≥ 11-cell (n = 130). Generalized estimating equation analysis based on multivariate logistic regression model was performed to adjust for potential confounders.
resultsThe live birth rate (LBR) was 19.0%, 27.1%, 38.9%, 32.1%, 44.0% and 53.8% for the ≤ 6-cell, 7-cell, 8-cell, 9-cell, 10-cell and ≥ 11-cell groups, respectively (P < 0.001). Specifically, the ≤ 6-cell group was associated with reduced LBR compared with the 8-cell group (aOR 0.50, 95% CI 0.29-0.86; P = 0.013). Conversely, the odds of live birth were significantly increased in patients transferred with 10-cell embryos (aOR 1.62, 95% CI 1.03-2.53; P = 0.035) and ≥ 11-cell embryos (aOR 2.14, 95% CI 1.47-3.11; P < 0.001) when using the 8-cell embryo group as reference. Similar trends were also observed in the rates of positive hCG test and clinical pregnancy, while no significant differences were detected in miscarriage risk.
conclusionIncreased blastomere number was associated with higher LBR in fresh single day 3 embryo transfer cycles. This finding questions the consensus on the reduced developmental potential of fast-cleaving embryos. Further large prospective studies are warranted for confirmation.
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