Luteal phase in infertility: problems of evaluation

This study was undertaken to examine the endometrial data in 200 infertile women whose three progesterone estimations per cycle totaled over 15 ng/ml when taken from 11 to 4 days preceding menstruation. Forty-three patients (21.5%) showed defective endometria in two separate cycles. No difference was found when plasma progesterone concentrations in this group were compared with those of the remaining 157 infertile patients with normal endometria. Further, plasma progesterone in infertile women (both groups) was similar to a control group of 12 fertile women with normal secretory endometria. Endometrial biopsy is essential in the evaluation of luteal function in infertility and cannot be totally replaced by the use of plasma progesterone in three samples during the luteal phase since it failed to detect as much as 21.5% of abnormal secretory phases.