Risk of spontaneous preterm labor in pregnancies achieved by in vitro fertilization and complicated with severe form of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome: A case control study

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the potential impact of severe Ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome (OHSS) on the risk of preterm birth. Severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome is a serious complication in the methods of in vitro fertilization. The pathophysiology of this process is not clear enough and the treatment is symptomatic. Human chorionic gonadotropin (h-CG) is the most important known cause of this condition. Findings of other authors often do not match when it comes to complications that may occur in pregnancy. Methods: In the Gynecology and Obstetrics Clinic “Narodni Front” a case control study was conducted on 50 female patients with severe forms of OHSS in the period from January 2008 to March 2015. A control group was created based on age and it involved 59 patients with pregnancy achieved with IVF/ICSI during the same period, but in which OHSS did not occur. Results: Patients with the pregnancy complicated by OHSS, had a considerably higher rate of preterm labor, whether this was labor before gestation week 37 (56.0% vs. 30.5%) or before gestation week 34 (34.0% vs. 6.8%); significantly lower weight of newborns, as in the newborns with low body weight <2500g (45.6% vs. 25.0%) and specially in the newborn with very low body weight <1500 grams (19.1% vs. 3.8%), as well as preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), (11.76% vs. 1.59%). Conclusions: Pregnancy achieved by the IVF/ICSI method in which severe form of OHSS has been developed could have an increased risk of preterm birth. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.4.145 How to cite this:Dobrosavljevic A, Rakic S, Mihajlovic S. Risk of spontaneous preterm labor in pregnancies achieved by in vitro fertilization and complicated with severe form of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome: A case control study. Pak J Med Sci. 2019;35(4):---------.  doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.4.145 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.