AGE AND BASAL FOLLICLE-STIMULATING-HORMONE AS PREDICTORS OF IN-VITRO FERTILIZATION OUTCOME

Objective To examine the relative effect of basal follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) concentration and the woman's age on predicting the ova rian response to gonadotrophin stimulation, normal fertilisation rate and pregnancy rate in in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment following pituitary desensitisation. Design Descriptive cohort study. Participa nts Three hundred and forty-four women undergoing their first IVF cycl e. Methods Basal (menstrual-day 3) FSH concentration was measured and the woman's age calculated before she underwent pituitary desensitisat ion followed by gonadotrophin ovarian stimulation and IVF treatment. M ain outcome measures Cancellation rate due to poor ovarian response, t otal dose of gonadotrophin required to achieve follicular maturity, nu mber of oocytes collected, normal fertilisation rate and pregnancy rat e were compared between banded values of the variables studied. Result s Increasing basal FSH concentration was associated significantly with increased cancellation rate, but increasing age was not. Both increas ing basal FSH and age were associated significantly with increased tot al gonadotrophin dose, and reduced number of oocytes collected and pre gnancy rate. Analysis of variance showed that the association for basa l FSH with the number of oocytes was significant, independent of, and stronger than the effects of age. Logistic regression analysis showed that age, but not basal FSH, was independently associated with pregnan cy rate. Neither basal FSH, nor age had significant association with n ormal fertilisation rate. Conclusion Basal FSH concentration is a bett er predictor of cancellation rate and of the number of oocytes collect ed in IVF treatment than age, but age is a stronger predictor of pregn ancy rate.