The minimal stimulation vs. conventional stimulation for DOR patients
To the best our knowledge, this is the largest study discussing minimal stimulation, our study included more than 1,000 cycles of conventional stimulation and 14,000 cycles minimal stimulation IVF in our 16 years of clinical practices. Our results suggests that in women with similar ovarian reserve, minimal stimulation IVF showed same success rate as conventional IVF in terms of oocytes retrieved, available embryos per cycle, pregnancy rate and live birth rate. Many studies have come to this same conclusion. Minimal stimulation is more cost-effective considering less gonadotrophins are used per cycle and if a similar success can be achieved, it can be considered a good alternative stimulation protocol for conventional IVF.
Furthermore, the cumulative pregnancy rate show a less steep curve after two or three cycles, but for the minimal stimulation protocol, the cumulative pregnancy rate slowly increases after each cycle with the same speed, which indicates its beneficial to continue the IVF treatments if possible and fits our hypothesis of waiting for a good oocyte.