Transdermal Testosterone Pretreatment in Poor Responders Undergoing IVF

Ιt has been suggested that the accumulation of androgens in the micro milieu of the primate ovary, plays a critical role in early follicular development and granulosa cell proliferation. Increased intraovarian concentration of androgens seems to augment follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) receptor expression in granulosa cells and thus, potentially leading to enhanced responsiveness of ovaries to FSH. In addition, androgen excess has been shown to stimulate early stages of follicular growth and increase the number of pre-antral and antral follicles.

On the basis of these data, it has been hypothesized that increasing androgen concentration in the ovarian micro milieu in poorly responding patients might lead to an increase in the number and the maturity of oocytes after ovarian stimulation for IVF. Hence, recent efforts have been focused on the potential benefit of androgen administration in the probability of pregnancy in poor responders undergoing ovarian stimulation for IVF.

Pretreatment with transdermal testosterone has been suggested as a safe and effective way of increasing the intraovarian androgen concentration. Recently, published, randomized control trials (RCTs) have evaluated transdermal testosterone in poor responders undergoing ovarian stimulation for IVF, with inconclusive results.

In view of the conflicting or inconclusive data regarding the efficacy of the proposed intervention, this study will attempt to explore the role of transdermal testosterone pretreatment in poor responders undergoing IVF through a properly designed RCT. The lack of a universal definition of poor responders has been identified previously and recently, in an attempt to address this issue, universal criteria for the definition of poor ovarian response have been proposed following a consensus meeting in Bologna. In the present study, the Bologna criteria will be used on the contrary to previous studies.

Despite the advancement in assisted reproduction technologies, poor ovarian response (POR) is still considered to be one of the most challenging tasks in reproductive medicine. Poor ovarian response is considered to be an inadequate response to ovarian stimulation, defined usually by a low number of oocytes retrieved or a low number of developing follicles in a previous or in the running, respectively, in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle. Given the severely diminished probability of pregnancy after IVF in these patients, the identification of an indisputably efficacious treatment, such as testosterone pretreatment, would be a promising alternative for poor responders undergoing IVF.