Corifollitropin Alfa in Poor Responders: Preliminary Results

Corifollitropin Alfa is a long acting synthetic recombinant follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH-CTP) molecule which has been recently proposed in poor responder's stimulation protocols. In a retrospective study, we analyzed 30 patients identified as poor responders' patients according to the Bologna Criteria which underwent ovarian stimulation with clomiphene, corifollitropin Alfa and rFSH. We compare the results with those obtained in a historical control group of 35 patients which underwent ovarian stimulation with clomiphene and rFSH. No significant differences were observed between the two groups in terms of the mean age (Group A 40.9 ± 2.8 years vs Group B 41.1 ± 3 years), the length of stimulation (Group A 13,3 ± 4.5 days vs Group B 12.4 ± 2.2 days), the number of cancelled cycles (Group A = 5 (16,6%) vs Group B = 5 (14,2%)), the number of retrieved oocytes (Group A 2.6 ± 1.5 vs Group B 2.7 ± 1.5), the number of embryos transferred (Group A 1.7 ± 1 vs Group B 1.9 ± 0.9), and the number of patients with transfer (Group A 24/30 (80%) vs Group B 27/35 (77%)). There were also no statistically significant differences between the two groups regarding pregnancy rate per started cycle (Group A 16.6% vs Group B 14.2%), pregnancy rate per embryo transfer (Group A 20% vs Group B 18,5%) and implantation rate (Group A 9,8% vs Group B 10,4%). Although the relatively small number of studied patients and the retrospective nature of this study we can conclude that corifollitropin Alfa seems to be as efficient as conventional stimulation protocol to treat poor responder patients.