Endometrial Scratching Effect on Clinical Pregnancy Rates in Patients Undergoing Egg Donor In Vitro Fertilization Cycles: the ENDOSCRATCH Randomized Clinical Trial (NCT03108157)

Endometrial scratch in women undergoing first-time IVF treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

“…One author confirmed that the trial was not eligible for inclusion as recruitment to the trial never commenced (Checa, 2013). The authors of four trials that included participants undergoing their first IVF cycle but did not present their outcomes separately provided data and were included in the review (Izquierdo Rodriguez et al, 2020;Lensen et al, 2019;Mackens et al, 2020;Nastri et al, 2013). Polanski et al, which included women undergoing an unselected number of previous IVF cycles, could not be contacted to obtain data for first cycle participants only.…”

“…For example, the I 2 statistic quantifies that the percentage of total variation in treatment effects estimates attributable to between study heterogeneity and a value of >50% indicates evidence of significant heterogeneity of treatment effects between studies (Deeks JJ, Higgins JPT, 2021). A subgroup analysis was conducted for two trials that reported 'early' miscarriages (prior to 12 weeks) (Izquierdo Rodriguez et al, 2020;Maged, 2018). Only one trial separately reported 'late' miscarriages (occurring between 12 and 24 weeks) (Izquierdo Rodriguez et al, 2020), with all other trials reporting miscarriages up to 24 weeks (which also included early miscarriages)therefore, due to the heterogeneity of this outcome, the late miscarriage subgroup was not included in this analysis.…”

“…A subgroup analysis was conducted for two trials that reported 'early' miscarriages (prior to 12 weeks) (Izquierdo Rodriguez et al, 2020;Maged, 2018). Only one trial separately reported 'late' miscarriages (occurring between 12 and 24 weeks) (Izquierdo Rodriguez et al, 2020), with all other trials reporting miscarriages up to 24 weeks (which also included early miscarriages)therefore, due to the heterogeneity of this outcome, the late miscarriage subgroup was not included in this analysis.…”

“…Eleven studies were two-arm RCTs (Eskew et al, 2019;Izquierdo Rodriguez et al, 2020;Karimzade et al, 2010;Lensen et al, 2019;Mackens et al, 2020;Maged et al, 2018;Mahran et al, 2016;Metwally et al, 2020;Nastri et al, 2013;Polanski et al, 2014;Yeung et al, 2014) and one was a four-arm RCT (Liu et al, 2017). Nine of the two-arm RCTs compared the ES procedure to usual care and two trials included a comparator involving a sham procedure (Eskew et al, 2019;Nastri et al, 2013).…”

“…The method of undertaking ES was largely similar across studies. Most used a pipelle sampler to invoke injury, except for one trial that used an embryo transfer catheter (Izquierdo Rodriguez et al, 2020), one that used a Novak Curette (Karimzade et al, 2010), and another that used either a pipelle or Wallace endometrial sampler (Polanski et al, 2014). However, there was substantial variation in the timing of when ES was performed across trials.…”