Best Time for IVF Between 7 and 25 Months Post Surgery Study Suggests

Researchers from Canada analyzed more than 400 women.

Key Points

Highlights:

• The best time to have IVF following endometriosis surgery seems to be between seven and 25 months post-surgery

Importance:

• This study can guide clinicians and patients in choosing the best time for IVF treatment in women who underwent endometriosis surgery.

What’s done here?

• Researchers compared IVF success rates in women with endometriosis and those without, taking into account the severity of endometriosis.
• They also analyzed the success rates in terms of when IVF was performed following endometriosis surgery.

Key results: 

Study found that:

• the success rate of IVF declined with increasing stages of endometriosis
• the presence of stage 3 and stage 4 endometriosis did not affect the outcome of IVF
• the highest IVF success rates were achieved when the procedure was performed between seven and 25 months after endometriosis surgery

Limitations of the study:

• The study was performed using data obtained from a single fertility clinic. 

Lay Summary

The more severe endometriosis is, the lower the success rate of IVF, according to a new study published in the Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology. However, the presence of endometriosis as such does not seem to affect the outcome of IVF and the best time to have IVF seems to be seven to 25 months after endometriosis surgery.

In order to evaluate the impact of endometriosis on the outcome of IVF and to identify the best time interval to have IVF following endometriosis surgery, researchers from Canada assessed 425 infertile women. A total of 216 of the women had endometriosis while 209 of them did not.

The researchers classified women with endometriosis according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) as having stage 1 to 4 endometriosis, with stage 1 being the mildest and stage 4 the most severe form of the disease. According to this, 58 women had stage 1 endometriosis, 67 women had stage 2, 63 women had stage 3, and 28 women had stage 4 endometriosis. All women underwent IVF treatment.

The researchers found that women with endometriosis had significantly lower levels of estradiol, the female sex hormone, which rises significantly in the blood as egg cells develop. Moreover, women with endometriosis also had a lower number of retrieved eggs cells to be used in IVF compared to women without endometriosis.

When they compared women with endometriosis who had different severity of the disease, the researchers found that the more severe the disease was the lower the success rate of IVF.
In women with stage 3 and stage 4 endometriosis, the presence of endometriosis did not affect the outcome of IVF.

Finally, the researchers found that the best IVF outcome was achieved if the procedure was performed in the time interval between seven and 25 months following endometriosis surgery.

Research Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28807807