The Outcomes in Fresh and Frozen-thawed Embryo Transfer Cycles in Infertile Women

Along with the expansion of embryo freezing methods, there have been studies comparing the fertility outcomes in two methods of fresh and frozen embryo transfer, which had conflicting results, so the present study was conducted with aim to compare the fertility outcomes between these two techniques.

This retrospective study was performed in 2020 on 1247 infertile couples referring to Dezful Om-Albanin infertility center. A total of 716 couples were studied in the fresh embryo transfer group and 531 couples in the frozen embryo transfer group within ten years. The two groups were compared in terms of age of women and men, history of fertility failure, endometrium thickness, duration of infertility, age of transferred embryos, number of transferred embryos, cause of infertility and fertility outcomes. Data analysis was done by SPSS software (version 21) and chi-square, Fisher’s exact and Mann-Whitney tests. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

In demographic findings, age of women and men, duration of infertility, number of transferred embryos and cause of infertility were not significantly different in two groups (P< 0.05), but history of fertility failure, endometrium thickness and age of transferred embryos showed a significant difference in the two groups (P<0.05). Pregnancy outcomes including chemical and clinical pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, chemical and clinical abortion, live birth and multiple  did not show significant difference in the two groups (P<0.05).

The results of this study showed that in terms of pregnancy outcomes, there is no significant difference between the two groups of frozen and fresh embryo transfer.