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Effects of Growth Hormone Supplementation on Poor Ovarian Responders in Assisted Reproductive Technology: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

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A Correction to this article was published on 05 January 2021

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Abstract

To investigate whether additional growth hormone (GH) treatment can improve pregnancy outcomes in poor ovarian responders (POR), this systematic review and meta-analysis is prospectively designed and has been registered in PROSPERO (Registration number: CRD42019137866). Literature search was conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library from January 2010 to June 2019, and studies before 2010 were included based on a Cochrane review published in 2010. Only English articles and randomized clinical trial studies were included. A total of 12 studies were included for analysis. GH treatment in poor ovarian responders significantly increased the clinical pregnancy rate (odds ratio (OR) = 1.75 (1.23, 2.50)), and the live birth rate also tended to increase after GH treatment (OR = 1.51 (0.97, 2.35)). Other outcomes including the gonadotropin requirement, oocyte retrieval number, endometrium thickness, and the number of patients with available embryos for transfer were also improved by growth hormone treatment (weighted mean differences (WMD) = − 0.78 (− 1.23, − 0.33), 1.41 (0.72, 2.09), 0.36 (0.18, 0.53), OR = 2.67 (1.47, 4.68), respectively). Based on the current study, GH treatment in POR can increase clinical pregnancy rate and show a higher but not statistically significant likelihood of live birth rate. The effect is likely to be mediated by improving ovarian response and endometrium thickness. The effect of GH treatment on live birth rate should be tested by further studies with a larger sample size.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant no. 2016YFC1000201) and the Capital Health Research and Development of Special (Grant no. 2018–1-4091).

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Author notes

  1. Fen-Ting Liu and Kai-Lun Hu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Key Laboratory of Reproductive Endocrinology and Assisted Reproductive Technology and Key Laboratory of Assisted Reproduction (Peking University), Ministry of Education, National Clinical Research Center for Obstetrics and Gynecology, Center for Reproductive Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, 100191, China

    Fen-Ting Liu & Rong Li

  2. Women’s Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310006, China

    Kai-Lun Hu

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Contributions

All authors listed did contributed to the writing and review of the manuscript. Study concept and design: FTL and KLH; drafting of the manuscript: FTL and KLH; figure and table design: FTL; critical revision of the manuscript: KLH; literature searching and review: FTL and KLH; data extraction: FTL and KLH; for important intellectual content: RL.

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Correspondence to Rong Li.

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Liu, FT., Hu, KL. & Li, R. Effects of Growth Hormone Supplementation on Poor Ovarian Responders in Assisted Reproductive Technology: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Reprod. Sci. 28, 936–948 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43032-020-00298-0

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