To assess the impact of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in women on In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) outcomes.
An observational monocentric case-control cohort study conducted between 2012 and 2019 compared the outcomes of the first cycle of IVF between 64 woman infected with HBV and 128 seronegative controls. Frozen embryos transfers made within 18 months of the puncture were included. The exclusion criteria were severe infections, viral co-infection in women, any viral infection in their spouse, or lack of fresh embryo transfer. The matching was performed according to age, primary infertility or secondary, conventional or intracytoplasmic injection IVF technique and date of attempt. The main analysis focused on cumulative live births rates (LBR).
The clinical and ovarian stimulation characteristics were comparable except for a longer period of infertility in the HBV group. The LBR in the HBV group, when compared to controls, was not different after transfer of fresh (14.06 vs 25.00% p = 0.08) or frozen embryos (4.17 vs 18.92% p = 0.08), but significantly decreased in cumulative analysis (15.63 vs 35.94% p = 0.003). HBV infection was negatively associated with LBR in multivariate analysis OR = 0.38 (95% CI 0.14-0.92) p <0.05. The implantation rate was lower in the HBV group versus controls, in fresh (14.89 vs 27.72% p = 0.02) and frozen (3.03 vs 21.65% p = 0.01) embryo transfers.
This study suggests a negative impact of HBV infection in women on the cumulative LBR after IVF.

Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.

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