Traditional Chinese Medicine Sequential Treatment for Endometriosis Associated Infertility

Overview

Endometriosis is a common, chronic disease. 30% to 50% of women with endometriosis are infertile. There is moderate quality evidence that laparoscopic surgery to treat mild and moderate endometriosis increases live birth or ongoing pregnancy rates. There was no evidence of benefit for post-surgical hormonal suppression of endometriosis compared to surgery alone for the outcomes of pregnancy rates. Past studies have confirmed that Chinese herbal medicine can inhibit post-surgical endometriosis recurrence, increase pregnancy rate.This study evaluates the efficacy and safety of Traditional Chinese Medicine Sequential Treatment of endometriosis-associated infertility. The study objective is to confirm that clinical pregnancy rate of patients with endometriosis-associated infertility post-conservative surgery accepting Chinese medicine activating blood, dredging liver and nourishing kidney sequential treatment is higher than expectant treatment.

This study is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter, prospective clinical study, conducted in China (six research centers). 204 cases of patients with endometriosis-associated infertility confined with Syndrome of qi stagnation blood stasis pattern in TCM after conservative surgery will be recruited. Patients will be randomly divided into two groups: experimental group (TCM Sequential Treatment) and control group (placebo). All the patients are treated for six menstrual cycles, taking pre-ovulation decoction before ovulation and post-ovulation decoction after ovulation. Pre-ovulation decoction of experimental group is HuoXueXiaoYi decoction, and post-ovulation decoction is BuShenZhuYun decoction. The drug of control group is placebo. Each menstrual cycle, patient is monitored of antral follicle count (AFC), ovulation, endometrial thickness, and endometrial blood flow by ultrasonography, and need fill TCM syndrome rating scale, pictorial blood loss assessment chart (PBAC), and the visual analogue scale(VAS).The 1st, 3rd, 6th menstrual cycle after surgery, the level of serum female hormone (FSH, LH, E2) are detected in menstrual period of 2 to 5 days, and female hormone (E2, P) in the middle of the corpus luteum 6-9 days. Patient must be security check (blood routine, urine routine, liver and kidney function, electrocardiogram) before and after drug treatment. Such as patients find pregnancy during medication, adopt the security check in finding pregnancy 7 days. Patients after amenorrhea need to be confirmed pregnancy by serum β-HCG detection. According to the level of serum HCG, E2 and P and clinical symptoms, corresponding tocolytic treatment will be given. At 6～8 weeks of pregnancy, patient need to be confirmed the clinical pregnancy by ultrasonography. If confirmed the clinical pregnancy (at least having one heart throb in intrauterine gestational sac), patient need to be confirmed ongoing pregnancy by ultrasonography at the 12～14 weeks of pregnancy. In the process of the entire study, adverse events will be closely observed, and the frequency and severity of adverse events will be recorded.