Effect of pretreatment with transdermal testosterone on poor ovarian responders undergoing IVF/ICSI: A meta-analysis

In order to identify and describe the effectiveness of transdermal testosterone pretreatment on poor ovarian responders, MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane library and the Chinese biomedical database were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Three RCTs, which compared the outcomes of female pretreatment with transdermal testosterone prior to in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF/ICSI) with those of control groups, were included in the present review. The three RCTs enrolled a total of 221 randomized subjects. The meta-analysis revealed that females who received transdermal testosterone treatment prior to their IVF/ICSI cycle had a two-fold increase in live birth rate [risk ratio (RR)=2.01, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.03–3.91], clinical pregnancy rate (RR=2.09, 95% CI 1.14–3.81) and a significantly more oocyte retrieved [mean difference (MD)=1.36, 95% CI 0.82–1.90]. The current findings provide evidence that pretreatment with transdermal testosterone may improve the clinical outcomes for poor ovarian responders undergoing IVF/ICSI. However, the results should be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size of the studies used and the heterogeneities. Further good quality RCTs would be needed to reach further conclusions.