‘Age specific variations in ovarian reserves in healthy fertile and infertile women: A cross sectional study

Ovarian reserve tests are valuable for evaluation of female fertility, and to formulate appropriate treatment strategies for infertile women. Antral follicle count (AFC) and Anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) are most reliable markers of ovarian reserve which are related inversely to age. There are many factors that affect ovarian reserve like race, ethnicity, fertility status, BMI or any chronic illness. We conducted this study to find outage specific nomograms for AMH and AFC among fertile and Infertile Indian women, to find out any variations between fertile and Infertile ovarian reserves at various centiles, to define the age cut-off of decline in AMH and AFC among fertile and Infertile Indian women and to find correlation between AMH and AFC. It was a prospective cross sectional single centre study conducted at a tertiary hospital of northern India from March 2017 to February 2022. Fertile healthy women were recruited from family planning clinic, oocyte donors and subfertile women from Gynaecology and ART clinic. AMH was done using ELISA, Beckmann Coulter Gen II assay and AFC was done using TVS with high frequency probe (9.0 MHZ, Voluson,S-6, GE Healthcare, USA) by trained personnel. R Statistical Programming Language was used for statistical modelling and visualization. Age-specific AFC centile chart and AMH centile chart were generated using GAMLSS (Generalized Additive Models for Location Scale and Shape) package available in R Statistical Computing Language. A Non-linear decline in ovarian reserves among fertile, while linear among infertile women was seen. Centiles defined for both groups with a faster decline in infertile women. Age cut off for decline in AMH and AFC in fertile women approximately 31 years using ROC analysis and Age cut off for decline in AMH and AFC in infertile women is approximately 34 years. There seems to be a good correlation between AFC and AMH. We need to counsel women to consider child bearing well before ovarian reserves decline (31-34 years).