Influence of Paternal Race on Characteristics and Outcomes of Assisted Reproductive Technologies

To investigate the association between paternal race and reproductive outcomes following in vitro fertilization (IVF).

We compared demographic and clinical characteristics, IVF cycle characteristics, and reproductive outcomes (pregnancy, miscarriage, and live birth), stratified by male and female partner race, for all IVF cycles performed at our institution between 2014 and 2019. Wilcoxon Rank Sum test and Pearson's Chi Square test were used to compare continuous and categorical data, respectively. A Poisson regression model was used to determine the association between race and clinical outcomes. Significance was set as P <.05.

We examined 1878 IVF cycles involving 1069 couples. The study population was diverse; 50.1% of male partners were white, 28.5% black, 15.1% Asian, and 2.3% Hispanic. The majority of couples (86.5%) shared a common self-reported race category. Black males were older than white males (39.6 vs 37.0 years), with higher BMI (30.4 vs 28.0) and higher frequency of male factor infertility (45.9% vs 33.5%). Female partners of black males were older than those of white males (35.6 vs 33.8 years), with higher BMI (29.6 vs 25.2), and higher frequency of female factor infertility (91.8% vs 83.9%). Although we noted race-related variability in IVF cycle characteristics, no significant differences in the outcomes of pregnancy, biochemical pregnancy, clinical intrauterine pregnancy, or ectopic pregnancy were observed between races.

Although paternal race was associated with IVF cycle characteristics, after controlling for potential confounders, paternal race did not independently contribute to outcomes in this institutional dataset.