Lab Notes and Concerns...
from Carol at the Cryobank
Please let the word go forth.....Progesterone results from one kit do not correlate to another kit. I wish they did. I believe they should correlate....but they don't. The internet has myriad comments and advice on when to breed based on progesterone levels. It is very confusing. Unless the progesterone test kit has been verified with hundreds of actual breedings resulting in pups, the advice from the kit manufacturers or the the veterinary literature is not likely to be of help timing the breeding. It seems some kit manufacturers use progesterone information from research sources as suggestions for interpreting their kits' results. These recommendations are not based on their kits use in the study. In other words, the test results from their kit may never have been tested in actual breedings. A quick internet search reveals 31 different companies offering progesterone testing kits. Progesterone tests should be standardized but they are not. There are many types of progesterone tests and the sampling and handling techniques do make a big difference in reliability. Quality control of the progesterone test kits and machinery is necessary for reliable results. During my search , I found a recall of one company's progesterone kits. How many inaccurate results were reported before someone noticed that the quality control failed ? A potential problem lies with making the standards used to provide a curve from which the sample result is calculated. Standards are made by a series of dilutions. If dilutions are off due to mechanical or human error, your standards are compromised. Another potential problem is verifying your standards....who do you check with? No wonder progesterone results vary so much. We have compared progesterone test results recently and found differences ranging from 4ng to 10ng! One bitch owner insisted on a surgical insemination with frozen semen based on their own vet's progesterone. We could not convince the owner to do another progesterone. To satisfy our curiosity, I paid for a progesterone test and blood was taken from catheter at time of surgery. Our kit read 10ng, the other test read 24ng. No surprise to us, the bitch did not get pregnant. Don't be surprised if we insist doing a progesterone test to confirm progesterone tests done elsewhere. We are dedicated to producing pups for our clients. We use our 28 years of progesterone testing experience to manage successful frozen, cooled, and natural breedings. So we are saddened when we fail to convince our clients of the need to do progesterone tests before using frozen semen and spending money on surgical inseminations. Case 1 WE CAN ONLY HOPE American Bullie Bitch: Somewhere Elsewhere Hospital said bitch would be ready 1/??/2013 Somewhere Elsewhere Hospital did a progesterone days before and predicted bitch would be ready for frozen semen insemination on 1/??/2013 day. We could not convince the owner otherwise. In order to help clients in the future understand the progesterone testing differences and show the unpredictablility of the progesterone rise, a progesterone test was done at my expense. The results showed she was 5.37ng at time of surgery. So we will wait and see. . Sperm was great. But I have very little hope it lasted the the 3-4 days or more necessary for the eggs to be ready for fertilization. Case 2 Arizona client, time urgent Eric Jones from Arizona was very distraught. He was here to breed to Lock N Load. Being on a very tight schedule and Lock N Load's availability, he had to make a decision to do the surgical insemination with frozen semen. Eric resisted doing a progesterone. I explained that the progesterone would confirm if the money spent on a surgery would possibly produce pups. The progesterone was 13.25ng. We could time the surgery and have a good chance for a successful litter. Two months later, a litter of six pups made Eric and the Bully Market forget the trials and tribulations of the breeding !! Case 3 Two Staffie Bitches, Frozen Semen  It happened that two Staffie bitches used frozen semen within a month of each other. Both used Dr. Pearson for the surgical and I did the thaws. Although we did the progesterone testing, one owner insisted timing the surgical insemination based on his internet research of progesterone testing. No pups. The other Staffie bitch was inseminated based on our recommendation from our progesterone tests (surgical 48 hours post 10.36ng) and had a happy litter of Staffie pups. In previous newsletters, I have published our progesterone results on successful frozen semen litters. ( see the archives) I did so in hopes of helping others have successful frozen semen litters. The recent variations in test kits now is so great, I don't think the information is very helpful to others but it is still important to show our successes based on our progesterone test results. I remain committed to helping conscientious breeders produce pups for people to love, Carol | 
