Are insulin resistance and free fatty acid levels associated with oocyte quality in patients with PCOS during IVF?
In PCOS patients undergoing IVF, altered free fatty acid profiles (specifically oleic and stearic acid) are associated with developmental competence and may contribute to poor pregnancy outcomes.
Our findings clearly demonstrated that PCOS is associated with significantly higher FAI and insulin resistance levels and decreased plasma SHBG levels, independent of body mass index. Obese PCOS patients had higher palmitoleic acid and oleic acid levels in both the plasma and follicular fluid than did the control subject and nonobese PCOS patients. Our results indicated that developmental competence is associated with oleic and stearic acid concentrations, which may contribute to the poor pregnancy outcomes in patients with PCOS.
Niu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.