Impact of Thyroid Antibodies on In Vitro Fertilization/Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection Outcomes

Background: Thyroid autoimmunity (TAI) and the success of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) have been linked in a number of studies; however, the findings are still debatable.
Objective: The aim of the current study is to examine whether the presence of thyroid antibodies affects IVF/ICSI results, such as the number of retrieved oocytes, embryo quality, clinical pregnancy rate, and miscarriage rate. Furthermore, subgroup analysis was performed to examine the relationship between the kinds and titers of thyroid antibodies and pregnancy outcomes during IVF/ICSI.
Patients and methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted on 80 infertile women who were nominated for IVF/ICSI; 40 cases with negative and another 40 with positive anti-thyroid antibodies. We compared between both groups regarding clinical/chemical pregnancy rate, doses/duration of induction of ovulation, number of collected oocytes, fertilization rate, quality of transferred embryos and miscarriage rate. Results: Among enrolled cases; 21 (52.5%) had positive anti-TG, 28 (70.0%) had positive anti-TPO and cases that had both anti-TG and TPO were 9 (22.5%), while those who had either anti-TG or TPO were 31 (77.5%). There were no significant differences between study groups regarding embryo quality, clinical/biochemical pregnancy rates, embryo cleavage, induction duration, endometrial thickness and number of fertilized/M2 oocytes or transferred embryos. However, the number of used induction ampoules and abortion rate were statistically significant increased among pregnant women.
Conclusion: Infertile women with TAI treated with ICSI had no increased risk of poor IVF/ICSI outcomes except significant increased risk for a first-trimester miscarriage compared with women without TAI.