Poor prognosis with in vitro fertilization in Indian women compared to Caucasian women despite similar embryo quality

Disease prevalence and response to medical therapy may differ among patients of diverse ethnicities. Poor outcomes with in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment have been previously shown in Indian women compared to Caucasian women, and some evidence suggests that poor embryo quality may be a cause for the discrepancy. In our center, only patients with the highest quality cleavage stage embryos are considered eligible for extending embryo culture to the blastocyst stage. We compared live birth rates (LBR) between Indian and Caucasian women after blastocyst transfer to investigate whether differences in IVF outcomes between these ethnicities would persist in patients who transferred similar quality embryos. In this retrospective cohort analysis, we compared IVF outcome between 145 Caucasians and 80 Indians who had a blastocyst transfer between January 1, 2005 and June 31, 2007 in our university center. Indians were younger than Caucasians by 2.7 years (34.03 vs. 36.71, P = 0.03), were more likely to have an agonist down regulation protocol (68% vs. 43%, P