Polycystic ovarian syndrome and miscarriage in IVF: systematic revision of the literature and meta-analysis

Purpose To evaluate the risk of miscarriage in IVF cycles in women with PCOS. Methods Systematic review and meta-analysis. Systematic search of MEDLINE, EMBASE and Google Scholar. The language search was restricted to English, Spanish and French, from 2000 to 2019, with crosschecking of references from relevant articles. Inclusion criteria were: (1) IVF cycles (2) a group of patients with PCOS was considered separately, (3) the miscarriage rate was reported, (4) there was a control group, (5) definition of PCOS according the Rotterdam criteria. Exclusion criteria were been excluded from the meta-analysis: (1) publication prior to the year 2000, (2) animal studies, (3) reviews, (4) abstracts or conference papers, (5) letters, (6) case reports, (7) studies comparing different IVF techniques, (8) studies comparing groups with and without metformin or other treatments, (9) studies on induced abortions. Risk of bias was assessed by the Newcastle–Ottawa score (NOS). All the included studies had a low risk of bias (NOS scores ranging 7–8). The review protocol was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42020186713). Seventeen studies were included in the meta-analysis. There was a total of 10,472 pregnancies (2650 in PCOS and 7822 in controls) of which 1885 were miscarriages (682 in PCOS and 1203 in controls). We considered the miscarriage rate (MR), preclinical MR, early MR, and late MR. Results In IVF pregnancies the risk of miscarriage was significantly increased when considering miscarriages in total (RR = 1.59; CI = 1.45–1.75), preclinical miscarriages (RR = 1.59; CI = 1.35–1.88), and early miscarriages (RR = 1.44; CI = 1.16–1.79). The increased miscarriage rate persisted in Chinese and Western populations when considered separately. The risk of miscarriage was increased in the subgroup of fresh transfers (RR = 1.21; CI = 1.06–1.39) as well as in the subgroup including either fresh or frozen transfers (RR = 1.95; CI = 1.72–2.22). Conclusion PCOS is linked to an increased MR in IVF pregnancies both of miscarriages in total, and to an increase in preclinical and early miscarriages. Prospero number CRD42020186713.