von Versen-Hoeynck F, et al. - The target of this paper was to ascertain whether the number of corpora lutea exerted an impact on the maternal creatinine and electrolyte concentrations in pregnancies conceived by assisted reproduction (ART). A link was disclosed between the absence of the corpus luteum with increased serum concentrations of sodium and creatinine, which pointed towards perturbed osmoregulation and glomerular filtration. An advanced research was required to assess the variations in maternal renal and cardiovascular adaptations to pregnancy between programmed cycles (which lack a corpus luteum) and natural cycle frozen embryo transfers.

Methods

• The enrollees included 184 women, who received care at an academic infertility practice from 2011 to 2014.
• An assessment was performed of stored samples obtained in early pregnancy from the candidates.
• A comparison was pursued of the serum levels of renal electrolytes between four groups, defined on the basis of number of corpora lutea.
• The four groups defined based on number of corpora lutea were: (1) absence of the corpus luteum (programmed frozen embryo transfer or donor egg recipient); (2) single corpus luteum (spontaneous pregnancy after infertility or natural cycle intrauterine insemination); (3) multiple corpora lutea with ovulation induction not including in vitro fertilization; (4) multiple corpora lutea related to the in vitro fertilization.
• Primary analysis was carried on singleton pregnancies (n=156).
• The Kruskal-Wallis-test conducted the statistical analysis.

Results

• There was no variation in the mean participants age and parity.
• Considerably higher levels were determined of the creatinine and sodium levels, for women with absence of the corpus luteum compared to all other groups (p=0.001 and p=0.003, respectively).
• No statistically marked variation was reported in serum creatinine and sodium among women with one corpus luteum, multiple corpora lutea in non-IVF cycles, and multiple corpora lutea in fresh IVF cycles in serum electrolytes.