Long-acting shot may work well in fertility

NEW YORK - Reuters

Women preparing for fertility treatment get a series of daily, sometimes uncomfortable, hormone shots to kick their ovaries into overdrive, but a European review of previous studies suggests that one long-acting shot may work just as well.

In an analysis of four past studies including over 2,300 women with infertility, researchers found the women were just as likely to get pregnant, and didn’t have any more complications, when they got a single, long-acting dose of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH).

For in vitro fertilization, extra FSH is used to trigger the ovaries to grow and release multiple eggs, which are then fertilized outside the body and transferred to the uterus.

“Long-acting FSH (weekly injection) is a good and safe alternative to daily injections in the first week of ovarian stimulation for IVF,” said Jan Kremer from Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands, who worked on the study.

The long-acting shot is used in Europe but not currently available in the United States, because it hasn’t been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The findings were published in The Cochrane Library.