Association of leptin with poor ovarian stimulation during in vitro fertilization

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether serum leptin levels are predictive of in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcome. STUDY DESIGN: A nested, case-control study was performed on patients undergoing IVF. Ovarian stimulation was performed with a set protocol. At the conclusion of the stimulation, patients were divided into 2 groups, poor stimulator (PS) and high stimulator (HS), based on the number of follicles seen on ultrasound. The PS group contained patients with < 12 follicles > 13 mm in diameter; the HS group contained patients with ≥ 12 follicles > 13 mm. Blood from the start of the cycle in which human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) was administered was assayed for leptin and estradiol. The number of follicles obtained, number of oocytes retrieved, quality of the oocytes and quality of the embryos were calculated. Mean leptin and estradiol levels were compared using Student's t test. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to assess the relationship between leptin and the other outcome variables. RESULTS: Mean leptin levels (± SEM) at the start of the cycle (21.5 ± 2.9 ng/dL for PS and 34.6 ± 14.0 ng/dL for HS) and on the day of hCG (53.2 ± 5.37 ng/dL for PS and 50.4 ± 9.1 ng/dL for HS) were not significantly different. CONCLUSION: Leptin levels obtained at the start of stimulation or on the day of hCG administration are not predictive of IVF outcome.