Abstract
The objective of the study was to assess the fertility of non-infertile couples seeking pregnancy in whom the woman was HIV infected. Therefore, a cross-sectional study was conducted between January 1998 and March 2005. A standardized fertility assessment was performed in all the included couples. A total of 130 women and 121 men were evaluated. Their median age was 34 years (range 22-43). Only 7.2% of the women were severely immunocompromised. The majority of women had regular cycles. Only one woman had an active sexually transmitted disease at the time of evaluation. A tubal occlusion on hysterosalpingogram was present in 27.8% of the women with no proven fertility. In 50.5% of the women, hepatitis C virus co-infection was present. One-third of the male partners (38/121) was infected with HIV. Abnormal semen parameters were observed in 83.4% of HIV-infected and 41.7% of HIV-uninfected partners (OR = 7; 95% CI = 2.1-23). It is concluded that the great majority of the HIV-infected women seeking pregnancy had a good infection status. Because in many of the couples, the women presented unexplained tubal occlusions and the men presented semen alterations, a hysterosalpingography and semen analysis should be part of the preconceptional investigations.
Year: 2007
Journal: Reproductive Biomedicine Online
PMID: 17425832
Centers: Congratulations to Aina Nicolau for defending her Master’s Thesis New publication in Molecular Human Reproduction New publication in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics Agustina Alessandroni has joined our laboratory to pursue her PhD degree.