Effects of different amounts of LH on superovulation induction with long-acting GnRH in an IVF program.

Objective: To evaluate whether different doses of exogenous LH affect IVF outcome.

Design: Retrospective analysis of two consecutive trials.

Setting: Infertility Unit of 1st Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Milan, Italy.

Patients: Two groups of 40 eumennorrheic patients matched for age and indications for in vitro fertilization.

Intervention: After suppression with a GnRH analogue, both groups received equal amounts of FSH in the first five days of stimulation; after this, the proportions of LH administered were doubled in one group because a different preparation was in use.

Main outcome measures: The following observations were compared: number of scans (days to hCG), number of oocytes retrieved, fertilization rate, quality and number of embryos transferred, pregnancy and abortion rate.

Results: Doubling the amount of LH administered does not affect any outcome measure except the number of days of stimulation needed prior to hCG administration.

Conclusions: No significant difference was seen in terms of number of oocytes, embryo number and quality, pregnancy and abortion rate. The only difference was the length of the stimulation phase.