Influence of early ICSI-derived embryo sHLA-G expression on pregnancy and implantation rates: a prospective study

BACKGROUND: We have previously reported the retrospective observation that when at least one embryo, trans-ferred on day 3, expressed sHLA-G above the geometric mean (sHLA-G1) 46 h post-ICSI, there was a marked improvement in both pregnancy (PR) and implantation (IR) rates. METHODS: The media surrounding individual embryos derived from ICSI performed on oocytes from 482 women #43 years of age were tested for sHLA-G expression by specific ELISA. RESULTS: We report here prospective results showing improved IVF results follow-ing the transfer of ‘good quality ’ embryos (7–9 cells with <20 % fragmentation) by preferentially including at least one sHLA-G1 embryos. PR and IR for women #38 years were 63 % and 32 % when one transferred embryo was sHLA-G1, and 69 % and 36 % when at least two embryos were sHLA-G1. When none of the embryos transferre