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Predictive value of serum β-human chorionic gonadotropin for early pregnancy outcomes

  • Gynecologic Endocrinology and Reproductive Medicine
  • Published:
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate the relationship between serum β-human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) levels and early pregnancy outcomes in women who became pregnant using assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs).

Methods

In this study, we retrospectively analyzed 523 pregnancies after ART use, with respect to the early clinical outcomes based on the serum β-HCG levels. The significance of using serum β-HCG levels to predict outcomes in early pregnancy was evaluated by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and cutoff values of serum β-HCG.

Results

We found that elevated serum β-HCG levels resulted in decreased biochemical pregnancy rates, increased multiple rates, and decreased ongoing and ectopic pregnancy rates. The cutoff values of serum β-HCG levels for the prediction of biochemical pregnancy were 213.15 IU/L, 986.65 IU/L, and 2206.5 IU/L for singletons, multiples, and twins or triplets, respectively.

Conclusion

The serum β-HCG level 14 or 12 days after D3 or D5 embryo transfer (conducted 3 or 5 days after oocyte retrieval), respectively, predicts biochemical/clinical pregnancy and singleton/multiple pregnancy with robust sensitivity and specificity.

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Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No’s. 81871110 and 81200473), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 18ykpy09), and the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine (Grant No. 2012A061400003).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Zengyan Wang and Yong Gao contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Reproductive Medicine Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhongshan 2nd Road, No. 58, Guangzhou, 510080, Guangdong, China

    Zengyan Wang, Yong Gao, Dan Zhang, Yubin Li, Lu Luo & Yanwen Xu

  2. The Key Laboratory for Reproductive Medicine of Guangdong Province, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhongshan 2nd Road, No. 58, Guangzhou, 510080, Guangdong, China

    Zengyan Wang, Yong Gao, Dan Zhang, Yubin Li, Lu Luo & Yanwen Xu

Authors
  1. Zengyan Wang
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  2. Yong Gao
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  3. Dan Zhang
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  4. Yubin Li
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  5. Lu Luo
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  6. Yanwen Xu
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Contributions

ZY: Project development, data collection, manuscript writing. YG: Data analysis, manuscript editing. DZ: Data collection. YBL: Data collection. LL: Data collection. YWX: Project development, manuscript editing.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zengyan Wang or Yanwen Xu.

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Ethics approval

The institutional ethical board (the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University) approved this study, and owing to its retrospective nature, informed consent was waived. The authors were blinded to the identity of the individual patients and have no information about the patients corresponding to the data.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Wang, Z., Gao, Y., Zhang, D. et al. Predictive value of serum β-human chorionic gonadotropin for early pregnancy outcomes. Arch Gynecol Obstet 301, 295–302 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-019-05388-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-019-05388-2

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