Endometrial scratching performed in the non‐transfer cycle and outcome of assisted reproduction: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Objectives

Endometrial injury prior to assisted reproductive techniques for recurrent implantation failure: a systematic literature review

“…Last but not least, even though all studies used endometrial biopsy as the studied intervention, its timing differed across studies with the Shohayeb and El-Khayat's study [27] offering endometrial biopsy during the proliferative phase, the Karimzadeh et al's study [24] during the luteal phase and, finally, the Baum et al's study [25] during both phases of the preceding menstrual cycle ( Table 1). The timing of endometrial injury was not specified in the Nastri et al's [26] study. Endometrial biopsy was compared with either no intervention [24] or sham procedures [25,26].…”

“…2). Moreover, intention-to-treat analysis was only followed in the study by Nastri et al [26] and, therefore, is unclear whether prognostic balance generated by the original random allocation is maintained in the remaining three included studies [24,25,27]. The number of included studies was small and hence funnel plots were not useful in assessing the presence of publication bias or other bias related to trials size.…”

“…The number of previous assisted reproductive techniqueembryo transfer cycles (ART-ET) were similarly varied between comparison treatments groups ( Table 1). Variations in cointerventions used were, also, apparent with women recruited in the Nastri et al [26] study using the oral contraceptive pill in the cycle preceding controlled ovarian stimulation and embryo transfer. Last but not least, even though all studies used endometrial biopsy as the studied intervention, its timing differed across studies with the Shohayeb and El-Khayat's study [27] offering endometrial biopsy during the proliferative phase, the Karimzadeh et al's study [24] during the luteal phase and, finally, the Baum et al's study [25] during both phases of the preceding menstrual cycle ( Table 1).…”

“…Study settings were varied: Iran [24], Israel [25], Brazil [26] and Egypt [27]. All studies were conducted in units outside Europe or North America.…”

“…All included trials used a two-armed, parallel group design. The subgroup of patients with recurrent implantation failure from the Nastri et al [26] RCT met the inclusion criteria and were studied for the purposes of this systematic review. Population characteristics varied across studies (Table 1) with the Baum et al's study [25] having recruited older women (average age 34 years of age).…”