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Maternal age, history of miscarriage, and embryonic/fetal size are associated with cytogenetic results of spontaneous early miscarriages

  • Genetics
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Abstract

Purpose

To clarify the associations of the maternal age, history of miscarriage, and embryonic/fetal size at miscarriage with the frequencies and profiles of cytogenetic abnormalities detected in spontaneous early miscarriages.

Methods

Miscarriages before 12 weeks of gestation, whose karyotypes were evaluated by G-banding between May 1, 2005, and May 31, 2017, were included in this study. The relationships between their karyotypes and clinical findings were assessed using trend or chi-square/Fisher’s exact tests and multivariate logistic analyses.

Results

Three hundred of 364 miscarriage specimens (82.4%) had abnormal karyotypes. An older maternal age was significantly associated with the frequency of abnormal karyotype (ptrend < 0.001), particularly autosomal non-viable and viable trisomies (ptrend 0.001 and 0.025, respectively). Women with ≥ 2 previous miscarriages had a significantly lower possibility of miscarriages with abnormal karyotype than women with < 2 previous miscarriages (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.48; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 0.27–0.85). Although viable trisomy was observed more frequently in proportion to the increase in embryonic/fetal size at miscarriage (ptrend < 0.001), non-viable trisomy was observed more frequently in miscarriages with an embryonic/fetal size < 10 mm (aOR, 2.41; 95% CI, 1.27–4.58), but less frequently in miscarriages with an embryonic/fetal size ≥ 20 mm (aOR, 0.01; 95% CI, 0.00–0.07) than in anembryonic miscarriages.

Conclusions

The maternal age, history of miscarriage, and embryonic/fetal size at miscarriage may be independently associated with the frequencies or profiles of cytogenetic abnormalities in early miscarriages.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Brian Quinn, editor-in-chief, Japan Medical Communication, for editing this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Maternal-Fetal, Neonatal and Reproductive Medicine, National Center for Child Health and Development, 2-10-1 Okura, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, 157-8535, Japan

    Nobuaki Ozawa, Kohei Ogawa, Aiko Sasaki, Mari Mitsui, Seiji Wada & Haruhiko Sago

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  1. Nobuaki Ozawa
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  2. Kohei Ogawa
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  3. Aiko Sasaki
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  4. Mari Mitsui
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Correspondence to Nobuaki Ozawa.

Ethics declarations

This study was approved by the institutional ethical committee to publicize the clinical findings of women and cytogenetic results of their miscarriages, in August 2015 (No. 991).

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Ozawa, N., Ogawa, K., Sasaki, A. et al. Maternal age, history of miscarriage, and embryonic/fetal size are associated with cytogenetic results of spontaneous early miscarriages. J Assist Reprod Genet 36, 749–757 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-019-01415-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-019-01415-y

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