Serum CA-125 values on the day of oocyte retrieval are not predictive of subsequent pregnancy with in-vitro fertilization

In the clinical management of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) patients it woul d be very useful to know, before the embryo transfer, whether or not there is a significant chance of pregnancy in that cycle, If low, it would be bet ter to freeze the embryos and postpone the embryo transfer to a subsequent cycle. For this reason, a retrospective study was carried out to investigat e the correlations between the serum CA-125 values before embryo transfer a nd the clinical outcome of that IVF cycle, Women aged <40 years undergoing a complete infertility evaluation including laparoscopy and receiving gonad otrophin-releasing hormone analogue (GnRHa) suppression followed by purifie d follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) for IVF-embryo transfer were entered i nto the study. Ninety-seven cycles qualified for evaluation (26 pregnant an d 71 non-pregnant cycles). CA-125 concentrations on the day of oocyte retri eval were significantly lower in the pregnant versus non-pregnant cycles in both non-endometriosis and endometriosis patients. To evaluate the existen ce of a cut-off value of CA-125 which would allow the prediction of a possi ble pregnancy with sufficient specificity and sensitivity, a receiver opera ting characteristic curve analysis was performed. This analysis demonstrate d the absence of any predictive value of the subsequent pregnancy for CA-12 5 concentrations. For this reason, and in contrast with previous findings, CA-125 determinations before the embryo transfer in IVF patients do not app ear to be a useful tool for clinicians to use in predicting the outcome of IVF in any given cycle.