Human Reproduction 2004 19(9):2173; doi:10.1093/humrep/deh453
Should the post-coital test (PCT) be part of the routine fertility work-up?
Hum. Reprod., 19, 1373–1379, 2004
The authors wish to apologise for a mistake in the analysis of this paper. As stated in the manuscript, the analysis was based on data kindly provided by Dr. Snick (Snick et al., 1997). Unfortunately the analysis presented by the authors was not based on the original data set of 726 patients collected between 1985 and 1993, but on an extended dataset that recruited patients until 1996. In the manuscript it is incorrectly stated that the original number of patients seen between 1985 and 1996 was 726 instead of 794.
Moreover, Snick et al. had performed a validation check on their data collected between 1985 and 1993. van der Steeg et al. originally analysed data as they were collected prior to that validation check, and their results might therefore have been invalid.
Re-analysis of the study by van der Steeg et al. on the validated data set collected between 1985 and 1993 is shown below. The validated data set contained 726 patients, of whom 538 had an ovulatory cycle and were included in the analysis. The prevalence of an abnormal PCT was 32% (174/538). The variables selected for the PCT prediction model were identical: primary subfertility, semen volume, concentration motile sperm, semen motility and semen morphology. The area under the ROC-curve (AUC) of this model was .79 instead of .81. The calibration of the model stayed good (Hosmer-Lemeshow test statistic P=.61 instead of .73).
The model for the prediction of pregnancy without use of the PCT had an AUC of .65 (was .61), the model for the prediction of pregnancy with use of the PCT had an AUC of .70 (was .65), whereas the model where the PCT was only performed in case of uncertainty had an AUC of .68 (was.64). The first model was statistically significant different from the second model (with use of PCT), and borderline statistically significant different from the third model (model with PCT performed in selected group), findings similar to the initial report.
All other numbers changed slightly, and these data are available from Snick et al. After this re-analysis on the validated data, the conclusions of van der Steeg et al. as formulated in the manuscript remain unaltered.
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