Facilitators and barriers for home-based monitoring to time frozen embryo transfers in IVF among women and healthcare providers

All five at-home urine ovulation predictor kits demonstrated high accuracy (92–97%) when compared with blood LH levels, though sensitivity varied widely from 38% to 77% with Clinical Guard the lowest. Patient experience was comparable across kits, though Clinical Guard was slightly less favoured for future use.

Similar accuracy and patient experience with different one-step ovulation predictor kits — Vanderhoff et al., Fertility and sterility (paywalled) · source ↗

• blood
• urine
• self-collection
• validation
• venous-agreement
• acceptability
• fertility
• hormones

Fertility patients commonly use direct-to-consumer ovulation prediction methods, yet reproductive endocrinologists rate the utility of these tests substantially lower than patients do. This discordance highlights the need for better patient education and guidelines to inform self-collection and interpretation of fertility biomarkers in decentralised care.

Direct-to-consumer fertility testing: utilization and perceived utility among fertility patients and reproductive endocrinologists — Peipert et al., Reproductive biomedicine online (paywalled) · source ↗

• acceptability
• self-collection
• fertility
• hormones
• urine

The study found that the Premom and Easy@Home urine-based luteinizing hormone testing systems provided estimates of peak fertility that were highly correlated with the Clearblue Fertility Monitor, suggesting they are accurate tools for ovulation detection and easy to use at home.

A Comparison of Two Hormonal Fertility Monitoring Systems for Ovulation Detection: A Pilot Study — Mu & Fehring, Medicina · source ↗

• urine
• self-collection
• acceptability
• fertility
• hormones

In a randomised trial of 260 women undergoing natural cycle frozen embryo transfer, home-based ovulation monitoring using urine LH tests provided greater feelings of empowerment and treatment discretion compared with hospital monitoring, despite similar increases in anxiety and sadness across both pathways.

Home- or hospital-based monitoring to time frozen embryo transfer in the natural cycle? Patient-reported outcomes and experiences from the Antarctica-2 randomised controlled trial — Zaat et al., Human reproduction · source ↗

• urine
• self-collection
• acceptability
• fertility
• hormones
• dct

In this pilot study, a home-based urinary PDG test achieved 100% specificity and 85-88% sensitivity for confirming ovulation against serum progesterone. With half of participants finding the test easy to use, the results support further development of decentralised fertility monitoring, though a larger trial is needed for definitive validation.

Pilot observational prospective cohort study on the use of a novel home-based urinary pregnanediol 3-glucuronide (PDG) test to confirm ovulation when used as adjunct to fertility awareness methods (FAMs) stage 1 — Leiva et al., BMJ open · source ↗

• urine
• self-collection
• acceptability
• fertility
• hormones