Natural Versus HRT Cycles in Frozen Embryo Replacement Treatment
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2013-05-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Frozen Embryo Replacement (FER)is a fertility treatment by which stored embryos from a fresh
IVF treatment cycle are thawed and transferred into the uterus. Frozen embryos can be
replaced either in the middle of a natural menstrual cycle (Natural FER) or in a cycle where
the woman takes drugs to suppress her own hormones, and then takes Hormone Replacement
Therapy (HRT) to prepare her uterus for the transfer of embryos(HRT - FER).
Both are widely used methods of fertility treatment. However, to date no well designed
studies have been reported in which the two methods have been compared. This study aims to
compare the two treatments in order to establish the best treatment protocol.
The study design is a single centre open randomized controlled trial funded by the Oxford
Fertility Unit.
100 women who are considering FER treatment at the Oxford Fertility Unit and are eligible for
the study will be recruited.
After giving their written consent they will be randomised to one of 2 groups: Natural FER
and HRT FER.
Patients in both groups will be asked to attend one initial visit, which is additional to
patients not taking part in the study.
Subsequent visits will depend on the treatment group but will not be additional for study
participants. All visits requiring ultrasound will involve recording 3-D measurements, which
increases the length of each visit by approximately 10 minutes. A patient satisfaction
questionnaire would be completed at the end of the cycle.
A urinary pregnancy test is performed at home 2 weeks following the embryo transfer visit. If
this is positive then further visits to the unit are arranged to confirm the clinical
pregnancy.
Inclusion in the study would not increase the length of time of either treatment cycle.
Follow up would extend to obtaining pregnancy outcome information.