Does serum anti‐Müllerian hormone levels always discriminate presence of the ovaries in adult bitches? Comparison of two ELISA kits

Abstract

Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) is produced in the ovary, and thus, it is an excellent marker of follicle pool in females. Current interest is the clinical use of this parameter as a biomarker to assess presence or absence of an intact ovary and to diagnose ovarian remnant syndrome (ORS) following incomplete ovariohysterectomy (OHE) in bitches. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum AMH concentrations in bitches (n = 34) before and after OHE using two different commercial ELISA kits, one of which is based on detecting human AMH and the other is based on detecting human AMH and the other specified for canine AMH. Furthermore, serum AMH levels were also measured in six ORS cases to compare the diagnostic utility of the two different ELISA kits. Serum AMH concentrations measured using the human and canine kit prior to and after OHE were 0.32 ± 0.24, 0.006 ± 0.22 ng/ml (p < .001) and 12.08 ± 22.81, 9.55 ± 15.42 ng/ml (p = .868), respectively. Thus, the canine-based kit was not able to reveal the significant drop in serum AMH levels. In conclusion, the human-based ELISA kits successfully detected the drop in serum AMH concentrations. Reliable results can only be achieved from well-designed ELISA kits, and AMH levels might be a useful diagnostic tool for the evaluation of presence or absence of ovaries as well as for the detection of ORS cases in bitches.

Immunohistochemical and qPCR determination of the expression and serum level of anti‐Müllerian hormone in pre‐pubertal, intact and ovarian remnant syndrome detected bitches

“…However, some of these methods (vaginal cytology, hormone measurement) may only provide accurate results in the hormonally active phase and often require repeated applications. For these reasons, it would be a great convenience for veterinarians to establish a single hormone or factor that can detect the presence of ovarian tissue even in the period of anoestrus; AMH shows promise for this purpose (Axnér & Strom Holst, ; Pir Yagci, Pekcan, et al, ; Place et al, ; Turna Yilmaz et al, ).…”

“…It has been reported that serum AMH concentrations can be used as an indicator of functional ovarian tissue in bitches (Pir Yagci, Pekcan, et al, ; Themmen et al, ; Turna Yilmaz et al, ) and queens (Axnér & Strom Holst, ; Pir Yagci, Polat, & Pekcan, ). In this study, it has been determined that ORS could be detected by measuring serum AMH concentrations, because the serum AMH concentrations could not be measured on days 10 and 21 following the removal of the ovarian tissue.…”

“…Considering all these functions, AMH may be a quantitative marker for the follicles that migrate from the primordial follicle pool to the growth pool. It is believed that the ovaries can be the only source of circulating AMH in females, because the concentration of AMH in the serum is undetectable after removal of both ovaries (Pir Yagci, Pekcan, Polat, Kalender, & Macun, 2016;Place et al, 2011), so determining the presence of gonads in dogs and cats has been investigated due to the gonadal origin of AMH in many studies (Axnér & Strom Holst, 2015;Themmen et al, 2016;Turna Yilmaz, Toydemir, Kirsan, Gunay Ucmak, & Caliskan Karacam, 2015). In addition, AMH was investigated in the diagnosis of granulosa cell tumours (Walter et al, 2018), cryptorchidism (Gharagozlou, Youssefi, Akbarinejad, Mohammadkhani, & Shahpoorzadeh, 2014), Sertoli cell tumours (Holst & Dreimanis, 2015) and in cases of pyometra (Ottosson, 2017) in bitches.…”

Low sensitivity of a test for anti‐Mullerian hormone to assess presence of ovaries in prepubertal bitches

“…The six spayed animals in our study that returned negative AMH results were also confirmed to have undergone a complete ovariohysterectomy in the previous month. Blood was collected from those animals at least 2 weeks after their procedures to enable AMH levels to return to basal levels …”

Farklı Yaş Guruplarındaki Safkan Arap Kısraklarda Anti Müllerian Hormon Konsantrasyonları Ile Reprodüktif Parametrelerin Korelasyonu

“…Measuring the AMH level has a particularly wide range of uses in women, including determination of the ovarian reserve, which is the number of functional follicles, monitoring the transition into the menopausal period, diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome and granulosa cell tumours and determination of low ovarian response and prognosis in in vitro fertilization applications [2] . Furthermore, it has been reported that AMH can be also used for the diagnosis of ovarian remnant syndrome in bitches [7,8] and granulosa cell tumours in mares [3,9,10] as well as a fertility indicator in ewes [11] , cows [12] and bitches [13] .…”