EC Gynaecology

Purpose: In a difficult economic situation forced by the Syrian war, we approached different methods aiming to play important role in cost-effectiveness hence offering the ART service by reducing the cost of drugs by 22%. This research aims to carry out a comparison of the IVF outcomes as well as rates of pregnancy in young females, undergoing COS for IVF/ ICSI, either with the combination of hMG and rFSH or with rFSH using antagonist flexible protocol. The addition of hMG with FSH is likely to result in a significant reduction in the IVF cost.

Patients and Methods: This retrospective research was performed in the British-Syrian Fertility center from 10^th April 2018 to 11^th May 2021. The target population for this research was females (< 35 years) undergoing OS for ICSI/ IVF along with embryo transfer.

1822 females ≤ 35 years were recruited for this research, such that N = 798 patients received rFSH only Follitrope LG^®), whereas N=1024 patients received hMG (IVF-M LG^®) and rFSH (Follitrope^®).

Results: The outcomes of this research revealed that the pregnancy rates of receivers of hMG + rFSH, and rFSH alone were not different.

However, rFSH alone treatment is expensive. In this regard, the addition of hMG with rFSH is likely to result in a significant reduction in the IVF treatment cost, whoever we could consider another approach by using uhCG instead of rhCG then we would gain reduction of medication cost by 25%, provide similar IVF outcomes for maturation rate, fertilization rate and rate of pregnancy.

Conclusion: Analyzing the outcomes of statistical analysis, it can be stated that the IVF outcomes and rates of pregnancy were similar among individuals treated with rFSH alone, and hMG and rFSH. However, the addition of hMG with rFSH is anticipated to have a significant reduction in the overall cost of treatment. Although using uhCG reduced the cost of hCG injection significantly by ¾ (cost of rhCG equivalent of 4 times of uhCG) the result should be taken into consideration when the decision made which hCG should take Thus, based on outcomes of this research, it can be stated that combination of hMG and rFSH must be utilized, as compared to rFSH alone.

Keywords: hMG; rFSH; Controlled Ovarian Stimulation; IVF; Cost-Effectiveness; Pregnancy Rate

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