A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CLOMIPHENE CITRATE IN COMPARISON TO GNRH ANTAGONIST IN PREVENTING LH SURGE AMONG PATIENTS UNDERGOING OVULATION INDUCTION IN IVF-ICSI

Abstract

Objective: To determine the efficacy of clomiphene citrate (CC) in preventing luteinizing hormone (LH) surge without adding gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist or GnRH agonist in stimulated first fresh intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycle by evaluating the outcome of oocytes and embryo quality. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Settings: Fertility Clinic registry at Hospital University Kebangsaan Malaysia. Patients: A total of 235 fresh stimulated ICSI cycle for patients aged 18-40 years old using clomiphene citrate plus gonadotropin (n=117) and GnRH antagonist plus gonadotropin (n=118) were studied. Intervention: Comparing two different ovarian stimulation protocol. Main outcome measure(s): Social economical demographic, ovarian stimulation response and laboratory outcome. Fertilization rate as our primary outcome and our secondary outcome were oocyte retrieval rate, mature oocyte rate and top quality embryo rate. Result(s):There were no difference in the demographic and hormonal characteristic of the study groups. The primary outcome of fertilization rate has significant difference with p value of 0.003; 73.2% for CC group and 64.2% for GnRH antagonist group. The secondary outcome of OR rate (78.4 + 17.6 VS 80.3 + 13.4, p=0.368), mature oocyte rate (85.2 + 19.0 VS 81.7 + 16.7, p=0.130) and top quality embryo rate (79.1 + 24.2 VS 75.8 + 21.9, p=0.178) were comparable between both groups. There were significant difference between the endometrial thickness on the day of trigger and OHSS risk among both groups (8.5 + 0.95 VS 9.4 + 1.1, p<0.001 and 12.8% VS 44.1% respectively). Discussion: Minimal stimulation protocol with CC and gonadotropin may be the answer to many infertile couples in need of IVF and yet having financial situation deterring them in attempting IVF treatment. GnRH antagonist could be safely replaced by CC by extending to 10 days as this protocol gives better primary outcome and comparable secondary outcomes with less OHSS. CC is recognized to induce thinning of endometrial lining and thus, may impair embryo implantation. However, with advancement of the vitrification system and higher success rate in frozen-thaw embryo transfer worldwide provides an excellent solution for this issue.

Keywords

• Clomiphene citrate
• minimal stimulation
• GnRH antagonist
• premature LH surge
• low cost IVF