Background: To assess the effect of intrauterine administration of seminal plasma for patients with recurrent implantation failure before frozen-thawed embryo transfer.
Methods: Trial design: This is a parallel group, randomized (1:1 allocation ratio) controlled trial.
Participants: All patients will be recruited from Chengdu Women’s and Children’s Central Hospital. Inclusion criteria: 1. Women after IVF/ICSI treatment in Chengdu Women’s and Children’s Central Hospital. 2.Infertile women with a history of recurrent implantation failure. 3.Infertile couples (both male and female) aged between 20 and 39 years;4. Couples who have at least 1 good quality embryos for transfer. 5. Males had negative in infectious disease test. 6. The males have semen. 7. Women who intend to undergo FET after IVF or ICSI or pre-implantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A). 8. Competent and able to give informed consent.
Intervention and comparator: Treatment group receiving intrauterine administration of seminal plasma before frozen-thawed embryo transfer.
Main outcomes: Clinical pregnancy after frozen-thawed embryo transfer.
Randomisation: Patients will be randomly allocated to either treatment or control group at 1:1 ratio. Random numbers will be generated by using software SPSS 25.0 performed by an independent statistician from Chengdu Women’s and Children’s Central Hospital.
Blinding (masking): Only the data analyst will be blinded to group assignment.
Numbers to be randomised (sample size): To account for a 10% dropout rate, we will recruit 174 patients (87 in each group).
Trial status: The date of approval is 31rd May 2021, version 2.0. Recruitment started on 1rd June and is expected to end in July 2022.
Discussion: Intrauterine administration of seminal plasma before frozen-thawed embryo transfer of patients with recurrent implantation failure may improve clinical pregnancy rate, it has great Page 2 of 14 significance for assisted reproduction.
Trial registration: The study protocol has been approved by the ethics committees at Chengdu Women’s and Children’s Central Hospital. The trial was registered at the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR2100046803. Registered on 28 May 2021.