IVF and Chinese Medicine

IVF and Chinese Herbal Medicine

Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) as an adjuvant therapy to improve the success when women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) is an option for infertile couples. A systematic review study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of CHM with concurrent IVF versus IVF alone on the outcomes of IVF and its safety.

Twenty trials involving 1721 women were included in the meta-analysis. Three trials were evaluated as having an unclear risk of bias. The remaining trials were evaluated as having a high risk of bias. Combination of CHM and IVF significantly increases clinical pregnancy rates (OR 2.04, 95%CI 1.67 to 2.49, p<0.00001) and ongoing pregnancy rates (OR 1.91, 95%CI 1.17 to 3.10, p = 0.009). Use of CHM after embryo transfer had no better outcome in reducing the rate of ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome (OR 0.39, 95%CI 0.14 to 1.11, p = 0.08).

This study showed that combination of IVF and CHM improve IVF success. Further large randomized placebo controlled trials are warranted to confirm these findings.

Huijuan Cao, Mei Han, Ernest H. Y. Ng, Xiaoke Wu, Andrew Flower, George Lewith, Jian-Ping Liu. Can Chinese Herbal Medicine Improve Outcomes of In Vitro Fertilization? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. PLoS One. 2013 Dec 10;8(12):e81650.