Predictive value of antral follicle count and serum anti-Müllerian hormone: Which is better for live birth prediction in patients aged over 40 with their first IVF treatment?

Objective: To evaluate clinical utility of antral follicle count (AFC) and anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) in predicting in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcomes among the patients over 40 years old in their first IVF cycles.
Study Design: Total 219 patients aged 40 or older who underwent their first IVF with gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist protocol from January 2013 to September 2014 in CHA Gangnam fertility center were retrospectively analyzed. AFC and serum samples were measured prior to IVF treatment. The main outcomes were clinical pregnancy rate and live birth.
Results: 36 out of 219 patients achieved clinical pregnancy (16.4%) and 27 out of 219 patients delivered (12.3%). The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis to predict clinical pregnancy showed that both age and AFC equally had higher accuracy by area under the curve (AUC = 0.657, P < 0.01) than serum AMH (AUC 0.613, P = 0.03). The optimum cut-off value of age was ≤41 and that of AFC was >3 to predict clinical pregnancy. For the prediction of live birth, AFC had the highest accuracy (AUC 0.698, P < 0.01), followed by age (AUC 0.674, P < 0.01) and the number of total retrieved oocytes (AUC 0.620, P = 0.02). The optimum cut-off value of age was ≤41, that of AFC was >3 and that of the number of total retrieved oocytes were >6. With multivariate regression analysis, age and AMH were significantly correlated with clinical pregnancy (age, odds ratio [OR] 0.53, P < 0.01; AMH, OR 1.31, P = 0.04), whereas age and AFC were association with live birth significantly (age, OR 0.41, P < 0.01; AFC, OR 1.10, P = 0.02).
Conclusion: In patients aged over 40, AFC and AMH were shown to be good biomarkers for the prediction of clinical pregnancy and live birth. Although AMH was positively correlated with clinical pregnancy and had no association with live birth, the predictive value of AFC and AMH were similar for both clinical pregnancy and live birth. To predict the live birth, age ≤41, AFC >3 and total retrieved oocytes >6 appeared to be meaningful. This study demonstrated the significance of AMH and AFC as predictors of clinical pregnancy and live birth for old aged women at their first IVF cycle with gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist protocol.
(Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)