Patients and study design
A retrospective study of infertile
women with normal ovarian reserve attending the Assisted Reproduction
clinic, Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital for IVF from
January 2017 to December 2019 was undertaken, and each patient was
followed for 18 months from the day of the ovarian stimulation. Ethical
approval was not required for the retrospective analysis.
Women were included if they fulfilled the following inclusion
criteria: (i) less than 40 years of
age; (ii) having indications for IVF; (iii) regular menstrual cycles
over the previous 3-month period (25 - 35 days in duration);
(iv) antral follicle count (AFC) of
more than 5 on menstrual cycle day 2 - 3, and basal serum FSH
concentration of no more than 10 IU/L. Women were excluded if they had:
(i) diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome, (ii) an abnormal uterine
cavity shown on hysterosalpingogram or hysteroscopy, (iii) moderate or
severe endometriosis, (iv) use of
donor eggs/sperm, (v) preimplantation genetic testing, (vi) rescue
intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) or half ICSI, (vii) still having
cryopreserved embryos but continuing to the next fresh IVF cycle.
Women were offered either
progestin-primed ovarian stimulation
protocol
(PPOS group) or
agonist long protocol
(agonist group) at the discretion
of the attending physicians or subject to the wishes of the couple.