Previous Use of Combined Oral Contraception in High Complexity Assisted Reproduction Treatments in Protocol with Oral Progestin - Previous use of COC and ART.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of prior use of combined oral contraceptives in assisted reproduction techniques with ovulation blockade by oral progestin.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study with a single-center convenience sample of patients treated between 2018 and 2021. Two groups were compared: with and without a history of combined oral contraceptives (comparator). The clinical variables were age, body mass index, type of infertility and smoking. Regarding treatment, antral follicle count; follicles >14 mm; oocytes in metaphase I and II; number of embryos; days of treatment; total dose of medication, chemical and clinical pregnancy rate and delivery after 1st embryo transfer. Absolute and relative frequencies were used for the qualitative variables; means, medians and t-test for the quantitative ones. Association between qualitative variables used the Chi-square test and, for quantitative variables, the Mann-Whitney test (p<0.05). The statistical program used was Stata 16.0.

Results: Among 407 medical records, 351 were included (combined oral contraceptive=243 and comparator=108). The combined oral contraceptive and the comparator groups had, respectively, mean (SD±) age 38.2 (4.5) and 38.2 (4.5) years; chemical pregnancy rates of 30.5% and 29.6% (p=0.281); clinical pregnancy rates of 24.8% and 24.1% (p=0.313) and abortion, 5% and 4.6% (p=0.544). The median time on combined oral contraceptives was 6 years.

Conclusions: Previous use of combined oral contraceptives did not impact reproductive results in relation to the comparator group in patients undergoing assisted reproduction techniques in protocols with oral progestin.