Related Experiment Videos
Unpredictable cases of complicated ovarian hyperstimulation in IVF
A Delvigne1, J Vandromme, I Demeestere
1IVF Clinic, St. Pierre Hospital, Free University of Brussels, Belgium.
Objective:
To characterize a subpopulation of complicated cases of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS).
Method:
Descriptive retrospective study.
Results:
0.75% of our IVF-ET population suffered from OHSS. Among this group, 33% did not exhibit any recognized risk criteria of OHSS in terms of infertility characteristics and ovarian response to exogenous gonadotrophins. Only severe (ascites) OHSS cases were considered (n = 5) in this study. Previous IVF-ET attempts had been uneventful and during the complicated trial, estradiol peak levels and numbers of oocytes retrieved remained below 2,500 pg/mL (conversion factor to SI unit, 3.671) and 10, respectively. In all cases, the luteal phase was supplemented by hCG and all patients became pregnant. A threshold level of exogenous and/or endogenous hCG seems to be responsible for the occurrence of OHSS.
Conclusion:
One-third of the patients developing an ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome after IVF-ET had not previously shown risk criteria. A causal role of exogenous and/or endogenous hCG is suggested.