Ethnic discordance in serum anti-Müllerian hormone in European and Indian healthy women and Indian infertile women.

RESEARCH QUESTION: Does anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) differ between healthy European and Indian women, and are potential ethnic differences modified by infertility diagnosis? DESIGN: Cross-sectional analysis of three prospectively recruited cohorts (n = 2758); healthy European women (n = 758), healthy community cohort from Kolhapur, India (n = 400) and infertility cohort from Kolhapur, India (n = 1600). AMH was determined by assay. Ethnicity, age and cause of infertility were modelled using additive quantile regression models. RESULTS: Healthy Indian women had lower AMH than their healthy European counterparts (population estimates 20.0% lower [95% CI 7.2-36.5]), with increasing discordance with increasing age; at 25 years AMH was 11.9% lower (95% CI 9.4-14.1), increasing to 40.0% lower (95% CI 0-64.6) by age 45. Comparison of healthy and infertile Indian women revealed differences that were related to cause of infertility. Women whose male partner had severe oligoasthenoteratozoospermia (n = 95) had similar AMH to controls; women with polycystic ovary syndrome (n = 220) had higher AMH, especially in those <30 years, and in women with a principal diagnosis of unexplained infertility (n = 757) AMH was lower (median difference 22.6% lower; 95% CI 9.1-37.7) than controls. CONCLUSIONS: AMH is substantially lower in healthy Indian women at all ages than their European counterparts. Infertile Indian women have variable differences in AMH from healthy Indian controls, with the extent and direction of differences primarily reflecting the underlying cause of infertility. Recognition of ethnic and cause-specific differences are critical to ensure accurate contextualizing of results and clinical outcomes for patients.

Impact of dehydroepiandrosterone on clinical outcome in poor responders: A pilot study in women undergoing in vitro fertilization, using bologna criteria.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the role of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) supplementation in women with poor ovarian response (POR) undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). DESIGN: Prospective case-control study. SETTING: Private tertiary fertility clinic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 31 infertile women with POR diagnosed as per the Bologna criteria. INTERVENTIONS: DHEA supplementation for 2 months and a subsequent IVF cycle, after two previous IVF cycles with POR. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Dose and duration of gonadotropin therapy, oocyte yield, embryo number and quality, pregnancy and live birth rate. RESULTS: No difference was seen in gonadotropin requirement before and after DHEA supplementation. There was a significant increase in total and metaphase II oocytes (5.9 ± 0.68 vs. 2.73 ± 0.24; 4.45 ± 0.47 vs. 2.09 ± 0.26), fertilization (3.65 ± 0.49 vs. 2.00 ± 0.27), Grade I embryos (1.52 ± 0.25 vs. 0.55 ± 0.18), pregnancy rate (30% vs. 9.1%) and live birth rate (25% vs 0%) in those who completed the cycle, following DHEA supplementation. CONCLUSIONS: Dehydroepiandrosterone supplementation results in an improvement in oocyte yield, embryo quality, and live birth rate in a group of women with POR having undergone at least two previous failures due to POR.