Saturday 28 May 2005
Decreased ovarian response seen in young as well as older women
Source: Human Reproduction 2005; 20: 1573-7
Examining age-related ovarian response to controlled ovarian hyperstimulation among women undergoing standard IVF.
Ovarian response to gonadotropin stimulation for IVF is diminished in young, as well as in older, women in couples with idiopathic or male subfertility, Dutch research shows.
Noting that there have been occasional reports of unexpectedly poor ovarian response to controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH) in young normally cycling women, A. Goverde and co-workers from Vrije Universiteit Medical Centre in Amsterdam set out to explore the relationship between age and ovarian response further.
Using multiple regression analysis, they assessed the influence of a woman's age on ovarian response in a prospective cohort of 85 women belonging to a couple with idiopathic or mild male factor subfertility, and then verified the results in a larger, retrospective cohort of 1155 patients with unexplained, mild male, or tubal subfertility.
The team found that the relationship between ovarian response and age followed an inverted U-shape for women with idiopathic or mild male subfertility from both cohorts, with ovarian response highest at around 28 years of age. In contrast, there was a linear decline in ovarian response with age among the women with tubal infertility.
While recognizing that they can only speculate on the mechanism underlying this observation, the researchers suggest that "a diminished quantitative but not yet full-blown 'poor response' to standardized COH for IVF may be a first sign of early ovarian aging."
Posted: 26 May 2005
http://www.obgynworld.com/international/news/weeklynews.asp 
Decreased ovarian response seen in young as well as older women (article) 
