Evaluation of Anti-zona Pellucida Antibodies in Serum and Follicular fluid for Polycystic ovarian women undergoing Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection Programme

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the reproductive performance of women with PCO undergoing ICSI treatment by checking the presence of antizona pellucida antibody (AZA) in blood serum and follicular fluid and correlating it to ICSI outcome. This prospective study was conducted at the Fertility centre in AL-Najaf Al-Ashraf city over a period of one year. The results of this study showed that the mean value and range of the age in the studied groups were (29.71±6.62) (18-45year) while the mean value for BMI was (27.70±4.05) Kg/m2, ranging between (19 -35.7). The mean duration of infertility was (8.40±4.16), ranged between 2-18 years. Quite a large percent, i.e. 86.7% of the subjects had a history of primary subfertility. Normal range values were documented for Basal Hormonal Levels. While peak E2 was within normal values range, but E2 on CD2 showed higher significance as found in the (non PCO) group. It was found that both the follicular & blood serum AZA was reportedly higher among women with (Non-PCO) of infertility than their counterparts but without any significant difference. Also, the peak means value for follicular AZA in subjects reporting with non PCO group came around 10.29 IU/L, while that for ovulatory cause followed along. The results of present study conclude that the AZA levels (both follicular & blood serum) may be used as one important marker of fecundity in cases of IVF/ICSI procedural candidates to increase successful pregnancy rates and reduce cancellation cycles. Infertile women must be treated for the clinical condition before starting ICSI procedure for successful ICSI outcomes. Thus, even remotest immune activation is detected by blood serum & follicular AZA and treated thoroughly afterwards, may affect ICSI outcome positively.