Hcg total qn what is

This can be minimized by applying pressure to the area for several minutes after the needle is removed. When your lab test comes back, your doctor will tell you what your hCG levels are. If your hCG levels are outside of the normal range, it could mean a variety of things. Your doctor will help you interpret the results. Levels of hCG that are lower than normal could mean:.

The hCG test can give both false-negative results and false-positive results for pregnancy. Certain medications, including those that contain hCG, can interfere with hCG blood test results. These include fertility drugs such as Profasi, Pregnyl, and Pergonal. Test results can also be influenced by the presence of germ cell tumors.

These tumors grow in the same cells as your eggs or sperm. A high hCG level in absence of pregnancy could indicate that your doctor needs to do more testing to see if cancer is a factor. However, if the test was performed too early in the pregnancy, before your body has had time to produce enough hCG, you can get a false negative. Because hCG levels change so quickly during early pregnancy, the hCG blood test should be repeated within 48 to 72 hours to observe how the hormone level is changing.

On the other hand, hCG can be present in some nonpregnant conditions, potentially causing a false-positive hCG pregnancy test. These figures are estimates, and you can have hCG levels that are lower than normal and still have a healthy baby.

Your doctor will check your hCG levels if they detect a problem. AMH levels help determine your ovarian reserve or the number of eggs you have at the time of testing. But they don't necessarily predict infertility. There are many reasons you might consider donating your eggs.

Learn more about the egg donation process, including possible risks, legal…. The biological clock describes the pressure people may feel to get pregnant while at the peak of their reproductive years, before fertility declines.

Polycystic ovary syndrome is a common cause of infertility. We'll discuss why and what you can do. At 21 years old, my motivation to donate was simple: I wanted to help a couple achieve their dream of becoming parents. As an adult adoptee in a same-gender relationship, I never expected it'd be hard to let go of the idea of being pregnant. Once I did, I came face to…. Int J Mol Sci. Eur J Epidemiol.

Mott Children's Hospital. Michigan Medicine. Human chorionic gonadotrophin HCG. October 8, Differences in serum human chorionic gonadotropin gise in early pregnancy by race and value at presentation. Obstet Gynecol. J Assist Reprod Genet.

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Related Articles. An Overview of Home Pregnancy Tests. Although there was an overall trend for lower estimates as compared to the non-parametric methods, these differences overall did not reach statistical significance.

Future analyses should determine whether these differences in cut-off values influence the associations of total hCG with pregnancy complications or whether there are consequences for the identification of women with a clinically relevant increased risk of other adverse outcomes.

This fits with observations that hCG levels are negatively associated with fetal growth [ 35 , 36 ]. Moreover, this suggests that pregnancy dating by ultrasound, which is considered the gold standard, might be less reliable in women with relatively high or low levels of hCG. We show that BMI is one of the most influential determinants of total hCG levels, exhibiting an inverse association.

Previous studies have shown a similar association between hCG and BMI, and some aneuploidy screening programs use BMI corrected values in order to increase testing performance [ 18 , 19 , 37 ]. The pathophysiology behind these associations is currently unclear.

BMI has been positively associated with placental weight and increasing placental weight is associated with increasing hCG levels in this study. The pathways via which this effect occurs remain to be elucidated and a potential role for adipokines or inflammatory markers should be considered [ 38 — 40 ]. Similar to previous studies, smoking was associated with lower hCG levels in the current study as well. However, we are the first to show that women who stopped smoking when the pregnancy test was positive had similar total hCG levels as non-smokers Supplemental Table 4.

This indicates that discontinuation of smoking at the time of known pregnancy may prevent the reduction in total hCG levels seen amongst continuing smokers and that the effects of smoking on total hCG levels will only become apparent after a particular smoking duration dose dependency. Indeed, similar to findings by Ball et al.

Most likely, this effect is a cumulative smoking effect considering that we also found a strong dose-dependent association between the number of cigarettes smoked and total hCG decrease.

Prenatal smoking has consistently been associated with an increased risk of small for gestational age children and low placental weight. It is likely that the effects of prenatal smoking on birth weight of the newborn are at least in part caused by a decrease in hCG levels as it has been shown that prenatal smoking leads to an increase in apoptosis of synctiotrophoblast cell layer [ 44 ].

Future studies should investigate to what extent hCG contributes to the changes in fetal growth and birth weight. Interestingly, in particular the effects of smoking, but also the effects of other characteristics seemed to be more pronounced in our study compared to other studies [ 16 — 18 , 20 , 21 , 43 , 45 ].

In turn, this could suggest that BMI, smoking, parity, ethnicity, child gender and placental weight have differential effects on specific types of hCG such as nicked or hyperglycosylated hCG. To our knowledge, this is the only study which reports RRs for total hCG during pregnancy apart from the manufacturer of the assay that we used, which reported on pregnant women [ 46 ].

Furthermore, we are the first to report the associations between detailed maternal and fetal characteristics and total hCG levels during pregnancy.

We were, however, limited by the fact that LMP and the menstrual cycle, placental weight and vomiting symptoms were only available in a subset of women. Also, the number of women with availability of total hCG measurements varied for each gestational week and therefore reference range determinations were not equally reliable throughout gestation, particularly during very early and the third trimester of pregnancy.

Potential differences in formulas used to determine gestational age based on ultrasound data may also underlie some of our results and warrant further research. In conclusion, we provide data on total hCG reference ranges during pregnancy from a large prospective population-based cohort and identified that these may considerably differ according to pregnancy dating methodology.

Furthermore, we found that total hCG differs according to maternal BMI, smoking, parity, ethnicity, child gender, placental weight and hyperemesis gravidarum symptoms. Our results suggest that the association between gestational age, hCG and fetal growth can cause less reliable ultrasound derived pregnancy dating, in particular in women with high or low levels of hCG.

These data underline the complex relations between hCG, maternal and fetal factors, which should be taken into account when studying pregnancy complications. Our findings can serve as a reference for various clinical research studies and warrant further research on reference range determination for hCG during pregnancy.

The analytical support by technicians of the endocrine laboratory is highly appreciated. We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of children and parents, general practitioners, hospitals, midwives, and pharmacies in Rotterdam.

This work was supported by a clinical fellowship from ZonMw, project number R. Tim I. Korevaar, Email: ln. Robin P.

Peeters, Email: ln. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. European Journal of Epidemiology. Eur J Epidemiol. Published online May Korevaar , Eric A. Steegers , Yolanda B. Jaddoe , Henning Tiemeier , Theo J. Visser , Marco Medici , and Robin P. Eric A. Yolanda B. Edward Visser. Vincent W. Theo J. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Corresponding author. Received Oct 24; Accepted May 4. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract Human chorionic gonadotropin hCG is a pregnancy hormone secreted by the placental synctiotrophoblast cell layer that has been linked to fetal growth and various placental, uterine and fetal functions. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article doi Introduction Human chorionic gonadotropin hCG is a pregnancy hormone secreted by the placental synctiotrophoblast cell layer.

Materials and methods Study population This study was embedded in the Generation R Study, a population-based prospective cohort from early fetal life onwards in Rotterdam, The Netherlands [ 24 ].

Statistical analysis Non-parametric gestational age specific RRs were determined by the 2. Results Descriptive characteristics of the study population are shown in Supplemental Table 1. Table 1 Gestational age specific, total population reference ranges for hCG in women. Gestational week N Median Minimum 2. Open in a separate window.

Reference range comparisons Pregnancy dating based on ultrasound is determined by fetal size. Table 2 Comparison of reference ranges for total hCG according to gestational age determined by ultrasound or last menstrual period LMP.

Determinants of hCG Figure 2 shows the association between maternal or fetal characteristics and total hCG levels adjusted for gestational week by multiple of median MoM transformation.

Discussion Total hCG values and RR cut-offs during pregnancy vary depending on different methodological as well as individual factors. Acknowledgments The analytical support by technicians of the endocrine laboratory is highly appreciated. Conflict of interest The authors have nothing to disclose.

Contributor Information Tim I. References 1. Ovarian physiology: relationship between plasma LH and steroidogenesis by the follicle and corpus luteum; effect of HCG. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. Aschheim S, Zondek B. Das Hormon des hypophysenvorderlappens: testobjekt zum Nachweis des hormons. Klin Wochenschr.