Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) is a hormone blood test that has become increasingly popular among physicians in the field of reproductive medicine over the past several years. The primary use of AMH testing is to assess a woman’s ovarian reserve status or, in more basic terms, it is an approximation of the supply of eggs a woman has remaining. This is one of several key factors used to help diagnose and treat women experiencing infertility issues.
Benefits of AMH testing include: a more direct measurement of ovarian reserve since AMH is produced by developing eggs whereas other tests measure hormones produced by the brain, can be done with blood drawn on any day of the menstrual cycle, and results are not significantly affected by oral contraceptive therapy so patients on oral contraceptives do not have to go off of them.
Another key factor in assessing a woman’s reproductive health is her age. It has been established that a woman has a finite number of eggs and as she ages the quantity and quality of the eggs decreases. Physicians typically use their clinical experience to adjust for the age factor.
At Unilab we did not feel it was sufficient to just report a result with normal and abnormal ranges that applied to all women regardless of age. Therefore, we conducted a study using AMH results from over 7,000 infertility patients to develop age-specific mean values that physicians and patients can use to more accurately assess ovarian reserve. For example, a 30 year old may have an AMH of 1.5 which is considered normal, but it should be noted that for this age it is considered low.
Conversely, there may be a 40 year old who has an AMH of 1.0 which is considered borderline between normal and low. But, take into consideration her age and this is actually considered on the high end. The main purpose of including age-specific AMH results is to provide physicians and patients with more individualized results for a more individualized diagnosis and treatment.