# Follicles on the scan?



## AllisonT (Feb 18, 2003)

Hi Peter,

I went to a clinic open evening the other day and they suggested that you can tell how many follicles are present on the ovary at the baseline scan and therefore make a reasonable guess as to how many follicles you are likely to recruit during stimulation. Is this true and if so is it very accurate? If it is possible I assume that it would be better to delay a stimulated cycle until you have a reasonable no of follicles on the ovary. Is this true or will the response to stimulation vry by other factors. 

many thnks Peter,
Allison
x


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## peter (Oct 2, 2002)

Please see my comments in your text:



AllisonT said:


> Hi Peter,
> 
> I went to a clinic open evening the other day and they suggested that you can tell how many follicles are present on the ovary at the baseline scan and therefore make a reasonable guess as to how many follicles you are likely to recruit during stimulation. Is this true and if so is it very accurate?
> 
> ...


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## Lind (Jan 8, 2003)

Hi Peter and Allison

I don't mean to barge in here, but maybe I can put a little light on this.

My clinic don't use a baseline scan, but we have a follicle count scan before we start the treatment. When they do the FSH tests. The idea is to get a hint on which egg capacity the ovaries have. In my case they could see seven possible follicles on each ovaries and from that they estimated I would have around 10-12 follicles at maximum stimulation. Which was normal for my age.  

Compared with the day 3 and day 9 FSH level my clinic use this to estimate the chances for success. This follicle count is a rather normal procedure at those Swedish clinics who has the best success rates. But not all clinics here uses them. 

Is it accurate? Well it still depends on the stimulation. In my case I didn't respond to the drugs as well as we hoped for so we ended up with only one egg in five follicles. We had a 100% fertilisation rate though.  And it only takes one.

My doctor says the amount of follicles doesn't really change, except decrease over time. It's basically a visual picture of your FSH levels. So it doesn't sound realistic that you could find a month that is better than another. The FSH value changes, but it is always the highest value that gives the most truthful picture. 

I hope this made it a little clearer for you. Different clinics are very different in their protocols. My doctor use to say that they still knows only a few percent of how this works and it is basically up to the experience of the different doctors to determined the success factors for each different protocol.

Love ^group^
Lind


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