Abstract
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is expensive, time consuming, and the most successful
treatment of fertility; however, in general the cumulative chance of having a live
birth with the treatment is still around 40%. Many couples still remain unsuccessful
after several IVF attempts, causing deep impact on quality of life, and each failed
cycle causing a financial burden. Several adjuvant therapies have been used along
with IVF to increase the pregnancy rates for women with repeated implantation failure.
Testing of adjuvant therapies in properly conducted randomized controlled trials is
rarely done so that potential benefits and risks are unlikely to be clearly presented
to patients and clinicians. In this review, we assessed the effects of adjuvants,
such as growth hormone, androgens, and glucocorticoids to enhance oocyte number and
quality; sildenafil, low-dose aspirin, heparin, corticosteroids, granulocyte colony-stimulating
factor, endometrial injury, intrauterine injection of human chorionic gonadotropin,
and intrauterine administration of autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells to
improve poor endometrial response; antioxidants, complementary and alternative medicine
modalities, such as Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture; and assisted hatching
and preimplantation genetic screening to correct embryonic factors.
Keywords
implantation - repeated implantation failure - IVF - adjuvant - embryo transfer
