Follicular pb levels in women attending in vitro fertilization: Role of endometriosis on the outcome

ABSTRACT Objectives: the pathogenesis of adverse reproductive outcomes and Pb exposure has not yet been explored, despite the evidence linking Pb and impaired ovarian function. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between serum and follicular concentrations of Pb and IVF treatment outcome. Methods: the levels of intrafollicular Pb of women who attended the IVF program at the Fertility Center of University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” from January 2015 to January 2017 were analyzed. Of these women 22 (47%) had male factor, 9 (19%) had tubal factor, 3 (6%) had ovarian factor, 6 (13%) had unexplained infertility and 7 (15%) had endometriosis problems. Results: the levels of intrafollicular Pb showed a nonstatistically significant trend toward higher values in patients with endometriosis (p=0.498). The median Pb level in follicles from pregnant patients showed trend towards lower values than that in the follicles from the non-pregnant patients but did not show significant variations according to IVF technique outcome (p=0.358). Similar results were obtained by correlating the levels of blood Pb according to the outcome of the IVF technique (p=0.360). Conclusions: our results suggest that there may be a significant relationship between IVF success and the degree of Pb contamination in the blood and follicular fluid and indicate that there is a need for more detailed analysis and larger study population to clarify the effects of Pb on women reproductive outcomes.