Does the time interval between antimüllerian hormone serum sampling and initiation of ovarian stimulation affect its predictive ability in in vitro fertilization-intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles with a gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist? A retrospective single-center study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the time interval between serum antimüllerian hormone (AMH) sampling and initiation of ovarian stimulation for in vitro fertilization-intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF-ICSI) may affect the predictive ability of the marker for low and excessive ovarian response.

DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING: University-based tertiary center.

PATIENT(S): Five hundred and forty women with AMH values measured before their first IVF-ICSI cycle.

INTERVENTION(S): Eligible patients treated with 150-225 IU recombinant follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) in a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist protocol.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Predictive ability of AMH for low and excessive ovarian response in relation to the time interval between serum AMH sampling and initiation of ovarian stimulation for IVF-ICSI.

RESULT(S): All patients had their AMH concentration measured up to 12 months before initiation of stimulation. The level of AMH demonstrated a statistically significant positive correlation with number of oocytes retrieved. The time interval between AMH measurement and initiation of stimulation had no influence on this correlation. The area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC AUC) of AMH was high for both poor (0.72) and excessive response (0.80). The ROC regression analysis demonstrated that the time interval from sampling did not affect the performance of either poor response or excessive response prediction.

CONCLUSION(S): A time interval up to 12 months between AMH serum sampling and initiation of ovarian stimulation does not appear to affect the correlation between AMH level and the number of oocytes retrieved and the predictive ability of AMH to identify women at risk of low or excessive ovarian response.