Does low-dose aspirin improve pregnancy rate in women undergoing frozen-thawed embryo transfer cycle? A pilot double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled trial

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate the effect of adjuvant low-dose aspirin therapy on clinical pregnancy rate and uterine perfusion in women undergoing frozen-thawed embryo transfer (FET) cycles.

Methods: This study was performed as a pilot randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial, from May 2012 to February 2015. Overall, 60 available eligible women who were candidates for FET were randomly assigned to two groups receiving either 100 mg oral aspirin (n =30) or placebo (n =30). The primary outcome measure was clinical pregnancy rate. Secondary outcome measures were pulsatility index (PI), resistance index (RI), implantation rate, live birth rate and miscarriage rate.

Results: There was no significant difference in endometrial thickness, PI and RI. However, the study group had higher rates of clinical pregnancy, implantation, live birth (P = 0.042, P = 0.031 and P = 0.007, respectively) and lower rate of miscarriage (P = 0.020) as compared to the control group. Twin birth rate was comparable between the two groups.

Conclusion: Our pilot study demonstrated that administration of low-dose aspirin in FET cycles results in better pregnancy, implantation and live birth rates without changing the uterine hemodynamics or endometrial thickness. However, further randomized clinical studies in larger populations are needed to confirm these findings.

Keywords: aspirin; frozen-thawed embryo transfer cycle; pregnancy rate; pulsatility index; resistance index.