Mild stimulation approach for In Vitro Fertilization treatment: Retrospective data from one Danish Centre

AIM OF STUDY: Over the last decade, the laboratory procedures in artificial reproduction have improved. Hyperstimulation causes an overload of eggs which will never be used. The present study was designed to evaluate the efficiency of a mild stimulation. To obtain oocytes for In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) a short antagonist protocol using Tamoxiphene and FSH was compared to conventional IVF. METHODS: A retrospective and observatory study including all patients with unexplained infertility. In total 720 cycles with mild stimulation protocol and 8,446 cycles with regular short antagonist IVF protocol were analysed. The observation period was from January 2011 until September 2017. All patients were recruited in the same time period and allocated to different treatments upon their request. Low stimulation using orally administrated anti-estrogenic drugs combined with FSH in the form of injections was used in order to obtain up to four mature follicles. RESULTS: The clinical pregnancy rate (CPR) per embryo transfer (ET) was 25% for the mild stimulation group. The CPR for the control group with conventional IVF was 23%. CONCLUSION: Mild stimulation may be an important step towards an easier IVF approach, more tolerable for women, easier and cheaper for the women and the society, while maintaining an acceptable success rate in terms of CPR. Large prospective studies need to be performed.