Ovarian Reserve Biomarkers Not Indicative of Reduced Fertility

HealthDay News — Biomarkers indicating diminished ovarian reserve versus normal ovarian reserve are not associated with reduced fertility among women aged 30 to 44 years without a history of infertility who have been trying to conceive for 3 months or less, according to a study published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Anne Z. Steiner, MD, MPH, from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and colleagues conducted a prospective time-to-pregnancy cohort study involving 750 women aged 30 to 44 years without a history of infertility who had been trying to conceive for 3 months or less.

The researchers found that the predicted probability of conceiving was not significantly lower for women with low antimüllerian hormone values compared to women with normal values by 6 cycles of attempt (65% vs 62%) or by 12 cycles of attempt (84% vs 75%) after adjustment for confounding variables. The predicted probability of conceiving was not significantly different for women with high serum follicle-stimulating hormone versus women with normal values after 6 cycles of attempt (63% vs 62%) or after 12 cycles of attempt (82% vs 75%); similar results were seen for high urinary follicle-stimulating hormone values.

“These findings do not support the use of urinary or blood follicle-stimulating hormone tests or antimüllerian hormone levels to assess natural fertility for women with these characteristics,” the authors write.

Disclosures: One author disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

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Reference

  1. Steiner AZ, Pritchard D, Stanczyk FZ, et al. Association between biomarkers of ovarian reserve and infertility among older women of reproductive age. JAMA. 2017;318(14):1367-1376. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.14588
  2. Santoro N. Using antimüllerian hormone to predict fertility. JAMA. 2017;318(14):133-1334. doi:10.10001/jama.2017.14954