The correlation between AMH and number of embryos in POSEIDON groups: a retrospective cohort study

Abstract

Research question: What is the association between serum anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) concentrations and the number of utilizable embryos obtained per stimulation cycle of IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in POSEIDON Groups 3 and 4?

Design: Retrospective cohort study of 412 cycles, in which patients in POSEIDON Groups 3 and 4 (antral follicle count [AFC] ≤5 and AMH <1.2 ng/ml) underwent complete IVF/ICSI treatment cycles in the Reproductive Center of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University between January 2017 and March 2019. Patients underwent IVF/ICSI treatment using either progestin-primed ovarian stimulation (PPOS) or gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist protocol as ovarian stimulation protocol.

Results: Three models were established to analyse the correlation between AMH and the number of utilizable embryos in this study. After adjusting for covariates (age, baseline FSH, stimulation protocol and AFC), the number of embryos increased by 0.1 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.06-0.14) with each increment of 0.1 ng/ml in AMH concentration. AMH was transformed from a continuous variable to a categorical variable (through trisection of AMH concentrations) and for the sensitivity analysis it was found that the number of embryos in the high AMH group (0.52-1.19 ng/ml) was 0.62 (95% CI 0.37-0.97) higher than in the low AMH group (0.06-0.24 ng/ml).

Conclusions: High AMH in patients in POSEIDON Groups 3 and 4 was found to be associated with an increase in the number of available embryos in IVF/ICSI. The potential reproductive prognosis can be assessed by AMH, to reduce the abandonment of treatment due to underestimation or to implement multiple ineffective stimulation cycles of treatment.

Keywords: Anti-Müllerian hormone; Antral follicle count; IVF–embryo transfer; Number of embryos; POSEIDON criteria; Poor ovarian response.