THE RANGE OF SUBTLE RISE IN SERUM PROGESTERONE LEVELS FOLLOWING CONTROLLED OVARIAN HYPERSTIMULATION ASSOCIATED WITH LOWER IN-VITRO FERTILIZATION PREGNANCY RATES IS DETERMINED BY THE SOURCE OF MANUFACTURER

Two previous studies found a correlation of higher pregnancy rates (PR s) with lower serum progesterone (P) levels at the time of human chori onic gonadotropin (hCG) injection in in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycl es when luteal phase leuprolide acetate (LA)-human menopausal gonadotr opin (hMG) was used for the controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH) regimen. In these two studies the radioimmunoassay (RIA) by Diagnostic Products Corporation (DPC) was used to measure P levels. This study a ttempted to corroborate these findings using a different RIA for P (Am ersham) when the same COH regime was administered. The PR was signific antly higher in the group where P was less than or equal to 1 ng/ml at the time of hCG (43.2%) versus the groups where the P level ranged fr om 1.1 to 2 ng/ml (15.8%). Viable PRs were also significantly higher i n the lower P group. In contrast to the previous data with the DPC ass ay, no differences were seen with P < 0.5 ng/ml (36.4%) versus 0.5-1 n g/ml (44.6%). Nevertheless, using the Amersham RIA, the data does sugg est decreasing PRs with higher serum P levels at time of hCG when usin g luteal phase LA-hMG COH regimen.