Oudshoorn SC, et al. – This study is performed to determine whether serum FSH levels on the day of hCG trigger differ between women with a poor, normal or hyper response to a fixed daily dose of 150 IU recombinant FSH (rFSH). The outcome suggests that no consistent connection is found between ovarian response and serum FSH levels on the day of hCG trigger in a 150 IU fixed dose treatment protocol.

Methods

• For this research, they designed a nested cohort study within a randomized controlled trial.
• This study was conducted at the University Medical Centre Utrecht between March 2009 and July 2011.
• In this study, blood was drawn from 124 women on cycle Day 2 and on day of hCG triggering.
• Serum FSH level was determined by the Beckman–Coulter Unicel DXi800 chemiluminescence assay.
• In order to detect a difference of 2 IU/L between poor, normal and hyper responders, a total of 64 participants (16 poor, 32 normal and 16 hyper responders) would provide 80% power, assuming a standard deviation of 2 and an alpha of 0.05.
• Women aged ≤39 years with a regular cycle and fixed FSH dose of 150 IU.

Results

• In this study, they found the median [range] body weight was 70.0 kg [55.0–85.6], 68.0 kg [52.0–94] and 60.6 kg [51.0–78.0] for poor (n = 16), normal (n = 94) and hyper (n = 17) responders, respectively.
• Mean (SD) serum FSH levels on day of triggering were 9.5 IU/L (2.4) in poor, 10.4 IU/L (2.3) in normal and 11.5 IU/L (2.2) in hyper responders.
• Serum FSH levels on day of hCG in poor responders differed significantly as compared to those in hyper responders (P = 0.03).