Safer Drug for Women Leads to Same Live Birth Rate

Abstract

With new information available, authors of a Cochrane Systematic Review have revised their conclusions about the relative effectiveness of two different treatments used to help women to get pregnant. They now conclude that, giving women gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonists leads to similar live-birth rates compared with GnRH agonists. Previously they had concluded that, women who have used antagonists have got a lower birth-rates than those who have used the agonists.

This is important because the systematic review also showed that GnRH antagonists could halve the risk of over-stimulating the ovaries compared with GnRH agonists, as well as halving the number of women who have to pull out of a cycle of therapy.

In 2006, when the researchers reached their earlier conclusion, they were only able to draw data from 27 trials. Since then, more research has been published, allowing them to consider the findings of 45 randomized controlled studies that involved 7,511 women.

“This increased the amount of data that let us get a much better idea of how well the two approaches compare,” says Dr Hesham Al-Inany, who was lead author of the research and works at Cairo University, Egypt. Dr. Al-Inany led a multi-centre team, with researchers based in the Netherlands and Canada and they concluded that “The reduction in ovarian hyperstimulation combined with a comparable mean of live-birth rate, justifies a move away from the standard GnRH agonist to use GnRH antagonists”

Full citation: Al-Inany HG, Youssef MAFM, Aboulghar M, Broekmans F, Sterrenburg M, Smit J, Abou-Setta AM. Gonadotrophin-releasing hormone antagonists for assisted reproductive technology.
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2011, Issue 5. Art. No.: CD001750. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001750.pub3. Copyright © 2010 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., reproduced with permission.