Progestin-primed ovarian stimulation for fertility preservation in women with cancer: A comparative study.

Background: In women scheduled for cancer treatment, oocytes cryopreservation is a well-established procedure. Random start protocols have been a substantial improvement in this setting, allowing to prevent delay in the initiation of cancer treatments. However, there is still the need to optimize the regimen of ovarian stimulation, to make treatments more patient-friendly and to reduce costs.
Methods: This retrospective study compares two periods (2019 and 2020), corresponding to two different ovarian stimulation regimens. In 2019, women were treated with corifollitropin, recombinant FSH and GnRH antagonists. Ovulation was triggered with GnRH agonists. In 2020, the policy changed, and women were treated with a progestin-primed ovarian stimulation (PPOS) protocol with human menopausal gonadotropin (hMG) and dual trigger (GnRH agonist and low dose hCG) Continuous data are reported as median [Interquartile Range]. To overcome expected changes in baseline characteristics of the women, the primary outcome was the ratio between the number of mature oocytes retrieved and serum anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) in ng/ml.
Results: Overall, 124 women were selected, 46 in 2019 and 78 in 2020. The ratio between the number of mature oocytes retrieved and serum AMH in the first and second period was 4.0 [2.3-7.1] and 4.0 [2.7-6.8], respectively (p = 0.80). The number of scans was 3 [3-4] and 3 [2-3], respectively (p<0.001). The total costs of the drugs used for ovarian stimulation were 940 € [774-1,096 €] and 520 € [434-564 €], respectively (p<0.001).
Conclusions: Random start PPOS with hMG and dual trigger represents an easy and affordable ovarian stimulation protocol for fertility preservation in women with cancer, showing similar efficacy and being more friendly and economical.
Competing Interests: The authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: E.S. received honoraria for presentations at meetings from Gedeon-Richter and Merck-Serono. He is also handling two grants of research from Ferring. None of the remaining authors reported any conflict of interest. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
(Copyright: © 2023 Filippi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)