Comparison of a rapid, quantitative and automated assay for urinary luteinizing hormone (LH), with an LH detection test, for the prediction of ovulation

Abstract

The prediction of ovulation is necessary for oocyte aspiration in a spontaneous cycle and can be reliably achieved only by measuring luteinizing hormone (LH). Since radioimmunoassays of LH take too long for repeated measurements on the same day, we evaluated the possibility of adapting a rapid and fully automated assay of serum LH for use with urine samples. The study group comprised spontaneously ovulating women (38 cycles) who requested artificial insemination. Their serum oestradiol (E 2 ) levels, ultrasound profile (US) and thrice daily urinary LH levels were determined from day 10 of their menstrual cycle. These patients were followed until US signs of follicular rupture were recorded. In all patients, a well-defined LH peak was measured in the urine. This peak lasted 12-15 h and was followed in 35 cycles (no US available for 3) by follicular rupture 9-51 h later. The data were grouped according to the time of the LH peak on day 0. Patients experiencing an LH peak between 0300 h and 0700 h on day 0 had significantly lower levels of E 2 on day 0 compared to those with an LH peak between 2200 h and midnight. This is due to the fact that in the patients with an LH peak between 0300 h and 0700 h, E 2 levels were already decreasing (from day 1 to day 0), whereas in those with the LH peak between 2200 h and midnight E 2 levels were still increasing on the morning of day 0. We conclude that the 30-min IMX LH assay is a reliable, rapid and readily acceptable method for measuring urinary LH and for the prediction of ovulation.

Anovulation after Precocious Pubarche: Early Markers and Time Course in Adolescence1

“…Urinary LH and salivary progesterone concentrations have both been shown to correlate well with respective serum levels (24,25,28,29). Urinary LH and salivary progesterone concentrations have both been shown to correlate well with respective serum levels (24,25,28,29).…”

“…The girls were considered to display ovulatory function when in at least one urinary or salivary sample collected within 15 days before menses progesterone or LH concentration was higher than 2 sd above the mean reference level for the follicular phase (27,28). Ovulatory function was considered present when urinary LH was more than 7 mIU/mg creatinine and/or salivary progesterone was more than 563 pg/mL within 15 days before menses.…”

Expressing the quantity of urinary analytes: a discussion of some issues arising from the monitoring of the menstrual cycle

“…The inevitable question is whether such a difference in u A has any physiological significance. In spite of these uncertainties, reports of the use of concentration measurements to monitor reproductive hormones in urine are increasingly common and in some it is claimed that specific threshold values are associated with particular events in the cycle [2,6,7,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]. In none of these cases were the data of a single cycle used by a woman to monitor her own fertility.…”

Contributive Research in Aviation Medicine, Bioengineering, Human Performance Analytic and Modeling Systems

“…Urinary LH has been shown to be a reliable marker for plasma LH, since urinary and plasma LH concentrations change in parallel (Kerin et al, 1980). In a study involving the prediction of ovulation required for aspiration of oocytes during spontaneous menstrual cycles, the Abbott Mx system was shown to be a reliable method for measuring urinary LH and for predicting ovulation (Bischof, Bianchi, and Campana, 1991). More recently, the midcycle serum LH peak was shown to be highly correlated to the measurement of urinary LH metabolites in frozen and thawed first void urine samples (Clough et al, 1992).…”