2023, Volume 16, Issue 2, pp 189 – 194

The effects of hydroxychloroquine on pregnancy outcomes in infertile women: a systematic review and meta-analysis

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Authors and Affiliations

Corresponding Author: Masumeh Ghazanfarpour, Student Research Committee, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran. E-mail: Masumeh.ghazanfarpour@yahoo.com

Abstract

A promising strategy for controlling repeated implantation failure (RIF) may be the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). To the best of our knowledge, no systematic review has been conducted on the effects of hydroxychloroquine on pregnancy outcomes. A systematic research of the following electronic databases was conducted: Cochrane, EMBASE-Ovid, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus from inception to December 2021, using the following keywords [hydroxychloroquine] AND [infertility]. Fertilization and rate of live birth were significantly higher in the HCQ+ prednisone (PDN) group than in the PDN alone group. However, the abortion rate was not different between the two groups. The meta-analysis of two studies revealed no statistical significance between the PDN group and HCQ+PDN group regarding clinical pregnancy rate (OR=.14 [95%CI: 0.4–4.370]; heterogeneity; P=0.13; I2=54%; random effect model) and implantation rate (OR=1.99 [95%CI: 0.94–4.2]; heterogeneity; P=0.37; I2=0%; fixed-effect model). While HCQ may help improve fertilization and live birth rates, adding it to prednisone did not improve overall pregnancy outcomes. This systematic review should be used with caution due to the small size, study design, and difference in the studies’ population

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About this article

PMC ID: 10015562
PubMed ID: 36937474
DOI: 10.25122/jml-2022-0095

Article Publishing Date (print): 2 2023
Available Online: 

Journal information

ISSN Printing: 1844-122X
ISSN Online: 1844-3117
Journal Title: Journal of Medicine and Life

Copyright License: Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.


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