Pituitary suppression before frozen embryo transfer is beneficial for patients suffering from idiopathic repeated implantation failure

Long-term gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRHa) administration before in vitro fertilization (IVF)/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in infertile women with endometriosis or adenomyosis significantly enhanced the chances of pregnancy in both fresh and frozen embryo transfer cycles. We hypothesized that long-term GnRHa treatment might also be beneficial for the idiopathic repeated implantation failure (RIF) patients. In the 21 patients receiving GnRHa and hormone replacement therapy (G-HRT) protocols for frozen embryo transfer, their data were compared with those of the 56 of frozen/fresh cycles they had previously undergone (previous protocols). Comparison showed that the finial results were significantly better with G-HRT protocols than with their previous protocols, with pregnancy rate, clinical pregnancy rate, implantation rate and on-going pregnancy rate being 70%, 60%, 40% and 38% respectively with G-HRT protocols, against 17%, 11%, 6.3% and 5% with previous protocols. The results showed that hormonally controlled endometrial preparation with prior GnRHa suppression could be used for patients who had experienced repeated failures of IVF treatment despite having morphologically optimal embryos, and the treatment may help increase the receptivity of the endometrium in these patients.