Figure 4. Summary of findings from thirteen studies that used hCG detection to diagnose early pregnancy.

Data are arranged by publication date and the first author of the study is shown. Three datasets are shown: (i) the percentage of at risk menstrual cycles that were hCG positive; (ii) the percentage of hCG positive cycles that did not manifest as clinical pregnancies = early pregnancy loss; and (iii) the percentage of clinical pregnancies lost prior to 12 or 28 weeks or live birth (definitions vary between studies). A clinical pregnancy may be manifest by a missed period although criteria vary between studies. Videla-Rivero et al. ⁷³, Sasaki et al. ⁷⁶, Cole ⁷⁸ and Mumford et al. ⁷⁹ do not report sufficient data to calculate all three values. Values are in Dataset 3.