Objective

To analyze the performance of an annotation-free embryo scoring system on the basis of deep learning for pregnancy prediction after single vitrified blastocyst transfer (SVBT) compared with the performance of other blastocyst grading systems dependent on annotation or morphology scores.

Design

A single-center large cohort retrospective study from an independent validation test.

Setting

Infertility clinic.

Patient(s)

Patients who underwent SVBT cycles (3,018 cycles, mean ± SD patient age 39.3 ± 4.0 years).

Intervention(s)

None.

Main Outcome Measure(s)

The pregnancy prediction performances of each embryo scoring model were compared using the area under curve (AUC) for predicting the fetal heartbeat status for each maternal age group.

Result(s)

The AUCs of the <35 years age group (n = 389) for pregnancy prediction were 0.72 for iDAScore, 0.66 for KIDScore, and 0.64 for the Gardner criteria. The AUC of iDAScore was significantly greater than those of the other two models. For the 35–37 years age group (n = 514), the AUCs were 0.68, 0.68, and 0.65 for iDAScore, KIDScore, and the Gardner criteria, respectively, and were not significantly different. The AUCs of the 38–40 years age group (n = 796) were 0.67 for iDAScore, 0.65 for KIDScore, and 0.64 for the Gardner criteria, and there were no significant differences. The AUCs of the 41–42 years age group (n = 636) were 0.66, 0.66, and 0.63 for iDAScore, KIDScore, and the Gardner criteria, respectively, and there were no significant differences among the pregnancy prediction models. For the >42 years age group (n = 389), the AUCs were 0.76 for iDAScore, 0.75 for KIDScore, and 0.75 for the Gardner criteria, and there were no significant differences. Thus, iDAScore AUC was either the highest or equal to the highest AUC for all age groups, although a significant difference was observed only in the youngest age group.

Conclusion(s)

Our results showed that objective embryo assessment by a completely automatic and annotation-free model, iDAScore, performed as well as or even better than more traditional embryo assessment or annotation-dependent ranking tools. iDAScore could be an optimal pregnancy prediction model after SVBT, especially in young patients.