Effect of Intralipid Infusion on Pregnancy Outcome in Infertile Women with History of Implantation Failure: A Single Blind Randomized Clinical Trial

Recurrent implantation failure is one of the problems associated with in vitro fertilization cycles. The aim of this study was to evaluate the results of pregnancy using intralipid infusion in infertile women with history of two implantation failures.

A clinical trial was conducted in 80 infertile women in the infertility center in Sari Imam Khomeini Hospital, Iran 2020. In all samples, the level of peripheral blood natural killer (NK) cells was measured two weeks before the intervention using flow cytometry. The participants were divided into an intervention group (n=40) and a control group (n=40) by SAS statistical software. Two days before embryo transfer, patients in intervention group underwent intra lipid infusion (2 ml of 20% solution in 250 ml sterile saline) for two hours and the control group received normal saline (250 ml) infusion. Clinical pregnancy (detection of fetal heart rate by ultrasound) rate was compared between the two groups. Data were analyzed using Chi-square, Mann-whitney, and t-test.

Clinical pregnancy rate was higher in intervention group after intralipid infusion (30%) compared with the control group (10%) (P=0.025). There were no significant differences between the two groups in the level of NK cells and peripheral blood lymphocytes (P<0.05).

Intralipid infusion improved clinical pregnancy rate in women with history of recurrent implantation failure. However, further studies are required on the possible mechanism of immunological effects of interlaipid in NK cells.