title: Highly purified hMG achieves better pregnancy rates in IVF cycles but not ICSI cycles compared with recombinant FSH: a meta-analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Human menopausal gonadotropin (hMG) was demonstrated to be superior to recombinant FSH (rFSH) regarding clinical outcomes. It is not clear whether this change in the evidence was due to the introduction of highly purified (HP) hMG.
  
  
  METHODS
  Systematic review of properly randomised trials comparing HP-hMG vs. rFSH in women undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and/or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). A meticulous search was performed using electronic databases and hand searches of the literature.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Six trials (2371 participants) were included. Pooling of the trials demonstrated that the probability of clinical pregnancy following HP-hMG administration was higher than rFSH and reached borderline significance (odd ratio (O.R) = 1.21, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.00 to 1.45), but the ongoing pregnancy/live-birth rate was not statistically different between the two drugs, although it showed strong trends towards improvement with HP-hMG (O.R = 1.19, 95% CI = 0.98 to 1.44). Subgroup analysis comparing both drugs in IVF cycles demonstrated a statistically significant better ongoing pregnancy/live-birth rate in favour of HP-hMG (O.R = 1.31, 95% CI = 1.02 to 1.68). On the other hand, there was almost an equal ongoing pregnancy/live-birth rate in ICSI cycles (OR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.7 to 1.36).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  HP-hMG should be preferred over rFSH in women undergoing assisted reproduction, especially if IVF is the intended method of fertilisation.
authors.affiliation: The Egyptian IVF-ET Centre, Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. kaainih@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Hesham G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Al-Inany
authors.forename: Ahmed M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Abou-Setta
authors.forename: Mohamed A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Aboulghar
authors.forename: Ragaa T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Mansour
authors.forename: Gamal I
authors.initials: GI
authors.lastname: Serour