Soft Versus Conventional Protocol in Ovarian Stimulation in Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection Cycles for Poor Responders

During assisted reproduction technology treatments like in vitro fertilization, some patients give a poor ovarian response to controlled ovarian hyperstimulation. The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology consensus defined poor response to ovarian stimulation during in vitro fertilization with Bologna criteria.

Bologna criteria: At least two of the following three features must be present:

(i) Advanced maternal age (≥40 years). (ii) Previous Poor responders (≤3 oocytes with a conventional stimulation protocol).

(iii) An abnormal ovarian reserve test Most controlled ovarian hyperstimulation regimens currently used for expected poor responders are based on using a high daily dose (300- 450 IU/day) of exogenous gonadotropins. Giving a high gonadotropin dose obviously increases the cost of in vitro fertilization, a consequence that would be acceptable if paralleled by an improvement in in vitro fertilization outcome. Unfortunately, however, the available data suggest that increasing the daily gonadotropins dose may increase the number of retrieved oocytes, but not the final success rate of in vitro fertilization.