If you're freezing your eggs, you've likely undergone a whirlwind of tests, and now you're left wondering what the results actually mean. Understanding how your eggs are evaluated for quality and future success is a key part of navigating this journey with clarity and confidence.
How can I understand the quality of my eggs?
This is one of the most common questions I get asked as a fertility doctor — several times a day. And it's an important one. When we talk about egg quality, it's essential to distinguish it from egg quantity.
What’s the difference between egg quality and quantity?
Egg quantity, also known as ovarian reserve, refers to how many eggs you have. We can assess this quite accurately using blood tests, such as AMH (Anti-Müllerian Hormone), and ultrasound scans that count the number of follicles in the ovaries.
Egg quality, on the other hand, refers to the likelihood that an egg will develop into a high-quality blastocyst (an embryo that reaches day 5 to 7 of development and is considered suitable for transfer during IVF) and eventually lead to a successful pregnancy. While quantity tells us how many eggs you have, quality tells us how likely each of those eggs is to lead to success.
Can egg quality be measured directly?
Traditionally, we haven't had a reliable way to measure egg quality before fertilization. The best predictor we’ve had is a woman’s age, which strongly correlates with average egg quality. As age increases, egg quality generally declines.
But here's the nuance: not all 35-year-olds have the same egg quality, and even within the same egg retrieval cycle, not all eggs are created equal.
After we retrieve eggs during IVF or egg freezing, we still don’t truly know their quality until we observe what happens next. If an egg fertilizes, develops into a high-quality embryo, and results in a pregnancy — we retrospectively consider that a high-quality egg. If it doesn’t develop well, we might assume the opposite.
What about people who are freezing their eggs and haven’t used them yet?
That’s a great question — and a real challenge. For patients who freeze their eggs, we don't have the benefit of seeing how those eggs perform. Embryologists can observe certain visual characteristics in eggs under the microscope, but there has never been a validated visual scoring system for egg quality. The features embryologists can see haven’t been consistently linked with real-world outcomes.
So how is egg quality assessed today?
This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) has started to change the game.
A company called Future Fertility has developed an AI-based tool called the VIOLET™ report, which provides a personalized analysis of egg quality. Here’s how it works:
After your egg retrieval, embryologists take microscope images of your eggs. This part of the process is non-invasive and adds no incremental risk to your eggs.
These images are securely analyzed by AI software trained on thousands of egg images and outcomes from clinics around the world.
The AI assigns a score to each egg, which reflects the predicted likelihood of it developing into a high-quality blastocyst.
This allows patients — especially those freezing eggs — to receive personalized insights into the potential quality of each egg, rather than relying solely on age or guesswork.
What does this mean for patients?
With AI-based assessments, patients now have more information to guide their fertility decisions. You not only get to see images of your own eggs, but you also receive a more objective, data-driven estimate of how likely those eggs are to succeed.
While no test can guarantee outcomes, this approach represents a major step forward in personalizing fertility care and helping patients feel more informed and empowered about their future.
Watch Dr. Nayot break down what egg quality means and how it’s assessed.
Dr. Dan Nayot is a reproductive endocrinologist and the Medical Director of The Fertility Partners, a leading network of fertility clinics across North America. He is the co-founder of Future Fertility, a Canadian med-tech startup harnessing artificial intelligence to transform reproductive medicine, and HaloHealth, an organization supporting early-stage health tech ventures. As an executive board member of Fertility Matters Canada, Dr. Nayot actively advocates for equitable access to fertility care. His work reflects a deep commitment to driving innovation and expanding accessibility of fertility treatments.
