Risk of adverse pregnancy and perinatal outcomes after high technology infertility treatment: a comprehensive systematic review

Abstract

In the literature, there is growing evidence that subfertile patients who conceived after infertility treatments have an increased risk of pregnancy and perinatal complications and this is particularly true for patients who conceived through use of high technology infertility treatments. Moreover, high technology infertility treatments include many concomitant clinical and biological risk factors. This review aims to summarize in a systematic fashion the current evidence regarding the relative effect of the different procedures for high technology infertility treatments on the risk of adverse pregnancy and perinatal outcome. A literature search up to August 2016 was performed in IBSS, SocINDEX, Institute for Scientific Information, PubMed, Web of Science and Google Scholar and an evidence-based hierarchy was used to determine which articles to include and analyze. Data on prepregnancy maternal factors, low technology interventions, specific procedures for male factor, ovarian tissue/ovary and uterus transplantation, and chromosomal abnormalities and malformations of the offspring were excluded. The available evidences were analyzed assessing the level and the quality of evidence according to the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine guidelines and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation system, respectively. Current review highlights that every single procedure of high technology infertility treatments can play a crucial role in increasing the risk of pregnancy and perinatal complications. Due to the suboptimal level and quality of the current evidence, further well-designed studies are needed.