Purpose:
Although the health services for the treatment of infertility have progressed over the years, the prevalence remains almost the same. One of the oldest treatments for infertility is intrauterine insemination (IUI).
Objective:
This study aimed to evaluate the value of uterine biophysical profile (UBP) scoring to predict the pregnancy rate after IUI.
Methods:
This prospective study was carried out on 85 women who were referred to our tertiary teaching center with infertility of male factor or unknown etiology infertility in 2018. To measure the uterine biophysical criteria, transvaginal ultrasonography (TVS) was performed on the day of beta-human chorionic gonadotropin (B-hCG) injection, and the results were evaluated based on positive B-hCG.
Results:
85 patients were included with a mean age of 30 years; of those 12 (14.1%) were able to conceive. Neither UBP (P= 0.151) nor it’s parameters (including endometrial thickness, number of endometrial layers, myometrial echogenicity, uterine artery pulsatility index, myometrial blood flow internal to arcuate vessels, endometrial blood flow in the third zone of endometrium, myometrial contraction frequency, and ovarian follicle (OF) size [p = 0.05, 0.89, 0.59, 0.79, 1, 1, 0.59, and 0.77, respectively]) were not significantly associated with pregnancy rate. 91.7% of the cases with positive pregnancy test results, had a UBP score of >13; however, UBP score was not meaningfully associated with IUI treatment success rate (p = 0.15).
Conclusion:
UBP scoring system seems to need more data for external validation, or it might require modifications before implementation, as it may cause false reassurance.