Uterine Cavity Irrigation With Office Hysteroscopy During Ovarian Stimulation for IVF: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Outpatient hysteroscopy impact on subsequent assisted reproductive technology: a systematic review and meta-analysis in patients with normal transvaginal sonography or hysterosalpingography images

BACKGROUND

Standard management for intrauterine lesions typically involves initial imaging followed by operative hysteroscopy for suspicious findings. However, the efficacy of routine outpatient hysteroscopy in women undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART) remains uncertain due to a lack of decisive high-quality evidence. This study aimed to determine whether outpatient hysteroscopy is beneficial for infertile women who have unremarkable imaging results prior to undergoing ART.

METHODS

A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted following PRISMA guidelines, incorporating data up to May 31, 2023, from databases such as PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library. The primary outcome assessed was the live birth rate, with secondary outcomes including chemical pregnancy, clinical pregnancy rates, and miscarriage rates. Statistical analysis involved calculating risk ratios with 95% confidence intervals and assessing heterogeneity with the I2 statistic.

RESULTS

The analysis included ten randomized control trials. Receiving outpatient hysteroscopy before undergoing ART was associated with increased live birth (RR 1.22, 95% CI 1.03-1.45, I2 61%) and clinical pregnancy rate (RR 1.27 95% CI 1.10-1.47, I2 53%). Miscarriage rates did not differ significantly (RR 1.25, CI 0.90-1.76, I2 50%). Subgroup analyses did not show a significant difference in clinical pregnancy rates when comparing normal versus abnormal hysteroscopic findings (RR 1.01, CI 0.78-1.32, I2 38%). We analyzed data using both intention-to-treat and per-protocol approaches, and our findings were consistent across both analytical methods.

CONCLUSIONS

Office hysteroscopy may enhance live birth and clinical pregnancy rates in infertile women undergoing ART, even when previous imaging studies show no apparent intrauterine lesions. Treating lesions not detected by imaging may improve ART outcomes. The most commonly missed lesions are endometrial polyps, submucosal fibroids and endometritis, which are all known to affect ART success rates. The findings suggested that hysteroscopy, given its diagnostic accuracy and patient tolerability, should be considered in the management of infertility.

DATABASE REGISTRATION

The study was registered in the International Prospective Register of Systemic Review database (CRD42023476403).

Efficacy of Hysteroscopy in Improving Fertility Outcomes in Women Undergoing Assisted Reproductive Technique: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

INTRODUCTION

Usefulness of hysteroscopy before assisted reproductive technique (ART) was considered debatable. However, over the last decade, several new trials have been added to available literature. We aimed to assess the impact of diagnostic and operative hysteroscopy on reproductive outcomes of infertile women with and without intrauterine abnormalities.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

MEDLINE, Scopus, SciELO, Embase, Cochrane Library at CENTRAL, PROSPERO, CINAHL, grey literature, conference proceedings, and international controlled trials registries were searched without temporal, geographical, or language restrictions. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of infertile women comparing hysteroscopy versus no hysteroscopy prior to the first ART or after at least one failed attempt were included. RCTs of infertile women with intrauterine pathology comparing diagnostic versus operative hysteroscopy were included in separate analysis. Random-effect meta-analysis was conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation and Cochrane criteria were used for quality of evidence and risk of bias assessment. Primary outcome was live birth rate (LBR). Secondary outcomes were clinical pregnancy (CPR) and pregnancy loss rate.

RESULTS

Fifteen studies (5,038 women) were included. Compared to no hysteroscopy before first or after failed ART attempts, moderate-quality evidence showed that hysteroscopy increased the LBR (relative risk [RR] 1.24, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.09-1.43, I2 = 21%), confirmed by subgroup analysis for women with failure after one or more ART cycles (RR 1.43, 95% CI: 1.19-1.72, I2 = 0%) but not before the first ART. Moderate-quality evidence showed that it increased the CPR (RR 1.36, 95% CI: 1.18-1.57; I2 = 51%), confirmed in subgroup analysis for both implantation failure (RR 1.40, 95% CI: 1.12-1.74, I2 = 52%) and before first ART (RR 1.32, 95% CI: 1.11-1.57, I2 = 42%). Low-quality data suggest that operative hysteroscopy increases CPR when used to treat intrauterine pathologies (RR 2.13, 95% CI: 1.56-2.92, I2 = 0%).

CONCLUSIONS

Although moderate-quality evidence supports performing hysteroscopy before ART in women with history of implantation failure, hysteroscopic evaluation of uterine cavity should be considered a first-line technique in all infertile women undergoing ART. Additional high-quality RCTs are still needed, particularly to assess yield during couple's initial evaluation even before ART is considered.

Effect of the decision to perform hysteroscopy on asymptomatic patients before undergoing assisted reproduction technologies-a systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE

Routine hysteroscopic evaluation before assisted reproductive technology treatment is a novel approach with the potential to reduce assisted reproductive technology failure even in the absence of evidence of uterine pathology. Following the publication of several relatively high-quality trials on this topic, we sought to determine if this practice is beneficial.

DATA SOURCES

We searched Web of Science, MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov from each database's inception until May 31, 2022 with our search strategy, attempting to locate all randomized controlled trials assessing the use of hysteroscopy in otherwise asymptomatic women undergoing assisted reproductive technology.

STUDY ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

We included only randomized controlled trials that included at least one of our selected outcomes, and we excluded any studies with suspicion of pathology before the time of hysteroscopy, other than knowledge of the patient's infertility. We included all the aforementioned studies regardless of procedures or modifications performed as a result of hysteroscopic findings. Our initial search yielded 1802 results, which were reduced to 1421 after removal of duplicates. Ultimately, 11 studies were found to meet our criteria and were included in our quantitative synthesis.

METHODS

We used ReviewManager software, version 5.4.1 to analyze the data, which we imported after manually gathering from the 11 studies. Continuous and dichotomous outcomes were imported as standard deviations. Pooled analysis was described as a mean difference, relative to 95 % confidence interval in cases of continuous data. Dichotomous outcomes were analyzed using risk ratios and 95% confidence intervals. In homogeneous outcomes, we used a fixed-effects model, and in heterogeneous outcomes we used a random-effects model.

RESULTS

Our results showed that hysteroscopy was associated with significant improvement in the clinical pregnancy rate (risk ratio, 1.27 [1.11-1.45]; P<.001). We found no differences between the hysteroscopy group and the control group in live birth rate (risk ratio, 1.26 [0.99-1.59]; P=.06), miscarriage rate (risk ratio, 0.99 [0.81-1.19]; P=.88), fertilization rate (risk ratio, 1.01 [0.93-1.09]; P=.88), incidence of multiple gestations (risk ratio, 1.29 [0.98-1.71]; P=.07), number of embryos transferred (mean difference, 0.04 [-0.18 to 0.26]; P=.73), chemical pregnancy rate (risk ratio, 1.01 [0.86-1.17]; P=.93), and number of oocytes retrieved (mean difference, 0.44 [-0.11 to 0.98]; P=.11).

CONCLUSION

We observed an improvement in the clinical pregnancy rate, but no significant improvement in the live birth rate with routine hysteroscopy before assisted reproductive technology treatment. We believe this does not represent sufficient evidence to recommend routine hysteroscopy for otherwise asymptomatic patients before assisted reproductive technology treatment at this time.