What is Estradiol?
Estradiol is the primary estrogen, the major female reproductive hormone, and is produced in your ovaries. As they grow and develop, your egg follicles secrete estradiol, helping to trigger the rest of the reproductive cycle. Estradiol levels vary during the menstrual cycle, and peak at ovulation.

What is the Estradiol Test?
The estradiol test is a simple blood used to measure the levels of estradiol in your blood stream.

Estradiol levels during an IVF cycle

During an IVF cycle, we first downregulate you before starting superovulation. In order to do this, we suppress you with medications containing GnRH agonists, called Lupron or Buserelin. This could be a long protocol ( when the Lupron is started on Day 21 of the preceding cycle);  or a short protocol ( when we start the Lupron on Day 1 of the treatment cycle). We prefer the short protocol in our clinic, because it is easier  and involves fewer shots ! In order to check you are downregulated, we do either a vaginal ultrasound scan on Day 3, to check there are no cysts in your ovaries; or a blood test to check your estradiol levels. Normally, if you are downregulated and your ovaries are quiet, the estradiol  level should be less than 50 pg/ml, which means we can proceed with superovulation. However, if the level is more than 50 pg/ml, this means you have not been downregulated. This could be because of poor ovarian reserve; or because you have an ovarian cyst ( which can be determined by a vaginal ultrasound scan). If the level is more than 50, we continue the Downregulation for another 4 days and re-check the estradiol level. If it is suppressed or has plateaued, we can proceed with superovulation. If not, we may have to cancel the cycle; put you on birth control pills to suppress the ovaries; and try the next month.

Estradiol and Ovarian Reserve

Normally, Day 3 estradiol levels should be low because your ovaries are quiet at this time. Elevated levels of Day 3 estradiol tend to indicate a problem with ovarian reserve. When Day 3 estradiol levels are used to assess ovarian reserve, they are measured in conjunction with the Day 3 FSH level.

The Results
Normal Day 3 estradiol levels tend to be around 50 pg/mL or lower.  

Check your own Estradiol levels

You can do this at MyMedLab !

Need help in interpreting the results ?

Need help in making sense of your lab results ? Please enter your lab values and your clinical details in our Free Second Opinion form at www.drmalpani.com/malpaniform.htm and I’ll help you interpret your results !