The morphological & histopathological changes of placenta in pregnancies obtained by Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)

Background: Growth of the fetus is directly related to the structure and function of the placenta, and the examination of the Placenta and umbilical cord provides us important information about what has happened to the fetus. Pregnancies induced by ART are more likely to develop pregnancy complications than other singleton pregnancies. The main cause of these undesirable pregnancy outcomes is uncertain, and perhaps morphological and histopathologic abnormalities of placenta in these types of pregnancies may be involved. Since the most common method of ART is the ICSI method, the aim of this study was to evaluate the histological changes of the placenta and umbilical cord in ICSI pregnancies.

Methods: In this study, 30 women who were pregnant with ICSI method and had no pregnancy complications were compared with 30 pregnant women with normal and non-complicated pregnancies. Morphology and histology of the placenta and umbilical cord were compared in two groups. For studying with optical microscopy, samples of the placenta were prepared from two groups were stained with H & E, PAS and trichrome, and compared with the optical microscope.

Results: There was no difference between the two groups in demographic variables. umbilical cord length, 1th and 5th minute Apgar score in two groups. The umbilical cord thickness (p = 0.01), and placental thickness (p = 0.02) was significantly higher in the study group. In the pathological study of placenta, it was revealed that in study group there are increased syncytial knot in staining with hematoxin and eosin, reducing of glycogen in PAS staining, and increasing the amount of fibrosis in trichrome staining compared with the control group.

Conclusion: The study of pathological changes in ICSI pregnancies compared with normal pregnancies showed that the prevalence of syncytial knots (Due to the accumulation of the nucleus of apoptotic cells in the placenta) is significantly higher.