Photo Credit: Mohammed Haneefa Nizamudeen
The following is a summary of “Adjuvant letrozole administration in gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist cycles do not affect ploidy status of embryos,” published in the December 2023 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology by Tulek, et al.
For a study, researchers sought to see what happens to the number of euploid embryos when letrozole is added as a supplement in cycles that block gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). The study looked back at information from patients who had GnRH blocker cycles with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and genetic tests for aneuploidy before they got pregnant between 2013 and 2021. The study looked at a total of 713 patients. Of those, 84 got letrozole as an extra treatment, and 629 had ovulation stimulation without any extra treatment.
The total amount of gonadotropins used was much lower in patients who were given letrozole (2166.80 ± 738.82 IU vs. 2541.96 ± 755.76 IU; P < 0.001), and stimulation lasted a little longer (9.80 ± 1.23 days vs. 9.53 ± 1.38 days; P = 0.037) than in patients who were not given letrozole. The overall euploidy rates were the same in the letrozole group (28.02% ± 31.08% vs. 23.02% ± 30.87%; P = 0.109).
The euploidy rate stayed the same even after patients were grouped by the age of the treated women. There wasn’t a big difference between the control group and the letrozole-treated group in the number of live births (66.7% vs. 62.2%). Giving 5 mg of letrozole every day for 5 days does not seem to change the number of euploid eggs that are produced in cycles that use a GnRH blocker and ICSI.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468784723001563