Uterine sperm-egg transfer: a cost-effective alternative to IVF in anovulatory women.

Anovulatory women can prove extremely challenging patients in the fertility clinic, particularly if they are unresponsive to standard protocols of clomiphene citrate. Katayama and colleagues now report (in this issue) an intriguing option, which yielded surprisingly high success rates in 16 selected young (age <36years) patients. Very low-dose progressive stimulation (35 IU gonadotrophins per day for 7days, followed by 75IU per day for about 5days if necessary), combined with the direct transfer of unfertilized eggs and prepared spermatozoa, resulted in a birth rate of 50%. The authors note that, at the time of oocyte retrieval, no spontaneous ovulation had occurred in any patient.