Predicting the Future: Test Developed to Pinpoint Age of Menopause

As your biological clock ticks down, it will no longer be a guessing game as to when the clock hits zero. Now you can find out exactly, within four months, when menopause will begin and fertility will end. While this is a boon to older women who are still of childbearing years and want to have (or continue to have) children, will there be a market outside that group? Do women really want to know?

Dr. Fahimeh Ramezani Tehrani, President of the Reproductive Endocrinology Department of the Endocrine Research Center in Iran, led a study that took blood samples from women aged 20-49. They were able to measure the concentrations of a hormone that is produced by cells in women's ovaries—anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH). AMH controls the development of follicles in the ovaries, from which eggs develop. The researchers took two further blood samples at three yearly intervals, and they also collected information on the women's socioeconomic background and reproductive history. In addition, the women had physical examinations every three years.

"We developed a statistical model for estimating the age at menopause from a single measurement of AMH concentration in serum from blood samples. To the best of our knowledge this is the first prediction of age at menopause that has resulted from a population-based cohort study. We believe that our estimates of ages at menopause based on AMH levels are of sufficient validity to guide medical practitioners in their day-to-day practice, so that they can help women with their family planning,” said Dr. Tehrani

The average difference between the predicted age at menopause using the model and the women's actual age was only a third of a year and the maximum margin of error for our model was only three to four years.
Using the statistical model to identify AMH levels at different ages would predict if women were likely to have an early menopause (before the age of 45). AMH levels of 4.1 ng/ml or less predicted early menopause in 20-year-olds, AMH levels of 3.3 ng/ml predicted it in 25-year-olds, and AMH levels of 2.4 ng/ml predicted it in 30-year-olds.

In contrast, AMH levels of at least 4.5 ng/ml at the age of 20, 3.8 ngl/ml at 25 and 2.9 ng/ml at 30 all predicted an age at menopause of over 50 years old. The researchers found that the average age at menopause for the women in their study was approximately 52.

Dr. Tehrani concluded: "Our findings indicate that AMH is capable of specifying a woman's reproductive status more realistically than chronological age per se. Considering that this is a small study that has looked at women over a period of time, larger studies starting with women in their twenties and following them for several years are needed to validate the accuracy of serum AMH concentration for the prediction of menopause in young women."