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ICSI does not offer any benefit over conventional IVF across different ovarian response categories in non-male factor infertility: a European multicenter analysis

  • Assisted Reproduction Technologies
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A Correction to this article was published on 14 October 2019

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Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate whether ICSI offers any benefit compared with IVF in different ovarian response categories in case of non-male factor infertility.

Methods

This is a retrospective multicenter analysis using individual patient data, conducted in 15 tertiary referral hospitals in Europe (1 center in Belgium and 14 in Spain). The study included the first cycle of all patients undergoing ovarian stimulation for IVF or ICSI in a GnRH antagonist protocol. Only patients having either IVF or ICSI for non-male factor infertility were included. Patients were divided into 4 groups based on their ovarian response as follows: group A, poor responders (1–3 oocytes); group B, suboptimal responders (4–9 oocytes); group C, normal responders (10–15 oocytes); group D, high responders (> 15 oocytes).

Results

In total, 4891 patients were analyzed, of whom 4227 underwent ICSI and 664 IVF. There was no significant difference for the insemination method (ICSI vs. IVF) used among the different ovarian response categories: 87% vs. 13%, 87% vs. 13%, 86% vs. 14%, 84% vs. 16%, for groups A, B, C, and D, respectively, p value = 0.35. Mean fertilization rates and embryo utilization rates were comparable between IVF and ICSI in the whole cohort. Fresh and cumulative LBR did not differ significantly for IVF and ICSI in poor, suboptimal, normal, and high responders.

Conclusion

There is no advantage of ICSI over IVF as insemination method for non-male factor infertility, irrespective of the ovarian response. The number of oocytes retrieved has no value for the selection of the insemination procedure in case of non-male infertility.

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Change history

  • 14 October 2019

    The original article unfortunately contained 2 mistakes.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Walter Meul and Alfredo Navarro for their contribution to the data management of the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Reproductive Medicine, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Laarbeeklaan 101, 1090, Brussels, Belgium

    Panagiotis Drakopoulos, Christophe Blockeel, Michel de Vos & Herman Tournaye

  2. Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Department of Surgical and Clinical Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Panagiotis Drakopoulos, Christophe Blockeel, Michel de Vos, Herman Tournaye & Nikolaos P. Polyzos

  3. Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad, IVI-RMA Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Juan Garcia-Velasco

  4. Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain

    Juan Garcia-Velasco

  5. Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad, IVI-RMA Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Ernesto Bosch

  6. IVI-RMA Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Samuel Santos-Ribeiro

  7. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Samuel Santos-Ribeiro

  8. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medical School, University of Crete, 71110, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Antonis Makrigiannakis

  9. Department of Reproductive Medicine, Dexeus University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain

    Nikolaos P. Polyzos

Authors
  1. Panagiotis Drakopoulos
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  2. Juan Garcia-Velasco
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  3. Ernesto Bosch
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  4. Christophe Blockeel
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  5. Michel de Vos
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  6. Samuel Santos-Ribeiro
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  7. Antonis Makrigiannakis
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  8. Herman Tournaye
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  9. Nikolaos P. Polyzos
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Correspondence to Panagiotis Drakopoulos.

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Drakopoulos, P., Garcia-Velasco, J., Bosch, E. et al. ICSI does not offer any benefit over conventional IVF across different ovarian response categories in non-male factor infertility: a European multicenter analysis. J Assist Reprod Genet 36, 2067–2076 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-019-01563-1

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