Growth hormone co-treatment on controlled ovarian stimulation in normal ovarian response women can improve embryo quality

To investigate the clinical efficacy of growth hormone (GH) in normal response patients with poor embryo quality in previous in vitro fertilization cycles. A total of 1562 infertile women were enrolled in this matched case–control study: 781 women were treated with GH (study group), whereas 781 matched patients were treated without GH (control group). GH was administered by a daily subcutaneous injection of 2 or 4 IU started from either D2 of the previous cycle (6 weeks GH pretreatment) or the initial day of controlled ovarian stimulation (2 weeks GH pretreatment) until hCG trigger. The study group was further divided into four subgroups: 2 IU-6 weeks GH pretreatment, 4 IU-6 weeks GH pretreatment, 2 IU-2 weeks GH pretreatment, and 2 IU-4 weeks GH pretreatment. Patients receiving GH showed significantly lower Gn dosage. The total number of oocytes retrieved, embryos formed, endometrial thickness on hCG day were significantly higher with GH. 2PN rate and high-quality embryo rate were lower in the GH group. However, GH increased clinical pregnancy rate with significant difference. 4 IU-6 weeks GH pretreatment showed lowest duration of Gn and highest clinical pregnancy rate compared with other three groups. Number of transferred embryos was confounding factor both in univariate and multivariate analysis. Our study showed that co-treatment with GH in patients with normal ovarian response could increase pregnancy rate.