Relationship between Maternal Serum Androgen Levels and Success Rate in ICSI Procedure

Androgens play a key role in growth of ovarian follicles and female fertility in the process of in vitro fertilization. This study was performed to determine the relationship between androgen levels and success rate in Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

A nested case-control study was carried out in 60 infertile women attending the Infertility Treatment Center in Sari Imam Khomeini Hospital. They underwent agonist protocol and their levels of luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), testosterone, and dehydro epiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEA-S) were measured on days three of menstrual cycle and ICSI cycle, day six of gonadotropin injection, and the day of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) injection. Data were analyzed in SPSS V18 applying independent T-test.

The mean age of participants was 30.1± 6.1 years. Among the subjects, 16 (26.7%) became pregnant and 44 (73.3%) did not become pregnant. On day three of ICSI cycle and before the onset of HCG injection, testosterone level was 0.88 ± 0.68 ng/ml in pregnant women and 0.53 ± 0.25 ng/ml in non-pregnant women (P= 0.012). The levels of DHEA-S were 2.79 ± 1.87 µg/l and 1.62 ± 1.45 µg/l in pregnant and non-pregnant women, respectively (P= 0.02).

Androgen levels can play a significant role in the success of ICSI cycle, so, androgen therapy can be an attractive hypothesis for improving ovarian response and used as a treatment option to increase the success of in vitro fertilization.