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Growth hormone supplementation during ovarian stimulation improves oocyte and embryo outcomes in IVF/PGT-A cycles of women who are not poor responders

  • Assisted Reproduction Technologies
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

To determine the effect of human growth hormone (GH) supplementation during ovarian stimulation in women undergoing IVF/PGT-A cycles, who do not meet the Bologna criteria for poor ovarian response (POR).

Methods

This is a retrospective cohort study of 41 women with suboptimal outcomes in their first cycle of IVF/PGT-A including lower than expected number of MII oocytes, poor blastulation rate, and/or lower than expected number of euploid embryos for their age, who underwent a subsequent IVF/PGT-A cycle with the same fixed dose gonadotropin protocol and adjuvant GH treatment. Daily cotreatment with GH started with first gonadotrophin injection. The IVF cycle outcomes were compared between the control and GH cycle using the Wilcoxon-Signed Rank test.

Results

The total number of biopsied blastocysts (mean ± SD; 2.0 ± 1.6 vs 3.5 ± 3.2, p = 0.009) and euploid embryos (0.8 ± 1.0 vs 2.0 ± 2.8, p = 0.004) were significantly increased in the adjuvant GH cycle compared to the control cycle. The total number of MII oocytes also trended to be higher in the GH cycle (10.2 ± 6.3 vs 12.1 ± 8.3, p = 0.061). The overall blastulation and euploidy rate did not differ between the control and treatment cycle.

Conclusion

Our study uniquely investigated the use of adjuvant GH in IVF/PGT-A cycles in women without POR and without a priori suspicion for poor outcome based on their clinical parameters. Our study presents preliminary evidence that GH supplementation in these women is beneficial and is associated with an increased number of blastocysts for biopsy and greater number of euploid embryos for transfer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Women’s Health Department, Dell Medical School, UT Austin, Medical Park Tower, 1301 W. 38th Street, Suite 705, Austin, Texas, 78705, USA

    Amanda Skillern, Whitney Leonard, Jordyn Pike & Winifred Mak

  2. Fora Fertility, 715 W 34th St, Austin, TX, 78705, USA

    Amanda Skillern

  3. Texas Advanced Computing Center, Austin, TX, USA

    Jordyn Pike

Authors
  1. Amanda Skillern
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  2. Whitney Leonard
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  3. Jordyn Pike
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  4. Winifred Mak
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Correspondence to Winifred Mak.

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Skillern, A., Leonard, W., Pike, J. et al. Growth hormone supplementation during ovarian stimulation improves oocyte and embryo outcomes in IVF/PGT-A cycles of women who are not poor responders. J Assist Reprod Genet 38, 1055–1060 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-021-02088-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-021-02088-2

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