Putting the test to the test

There are lots of kits for at-home testing, from the simple pregnancy test to gender testing your baby. But a new study shows that there is a lack of data to substantiate the effectiveness and accuracy of every test. The new review of tests comes from three researchers out of Johns Hopkins Medical Institution in Baltimore and is published in Fertility and Sterility. They looked at dozens of products that line the shelves of everyday stores, from ovulation tests to sperm counts.

“A lot of them are good and serve a useful purpose, but some are not, and may even have claims that are misleading to patients,” said Paul Brezina, study co-author. In addition to the products, they looked at literature, packaging, searched online and spoke with manufacturers to assess the level of veracity for each product.

Over the counter pregnancy tests were the most reliable. “Pregnancy tests have been subjected to the scrutiny of scientific investigation and have publicly mandated control measures aimed at ensuring their accuracy,” they concluded. They echoed that comment for fertility monitors that use hormone concentrations to predict ovulation.

But other fertility monitors, not so much. Ones that use saliva or vaginal secretions failed the reliability test. The same can be said for predictors of a baby’s sex. “We looked hard, we couldn’t find any data,” Brezina said of the accuracy of the sex test.

Source: Fertility and Sterility, Reuters