title: The diagnostic and therapeutic potential of the postcoital test.
abstract: An analysis was made of postcoital tests carried out on 423 couples attending the Rotunda and St. James Hospitals in Dublin. Initially 66.6% of tests were abnormal, but 21.3% of these were invalid because of the presence of seminal or cervical abnormalities, leaving 57.7% of couples with initially valid negative tests. Retesting showed 30.3% of couples to have persistently negative tests, 24.5% of whom achieved pregnancy. Three per cent of abnormalities were immunologic in origin. The most common cause why a subsequently positive test was initially negative was failure to observe correct clinical procedures, but unadmitted psychosexual problems were present in 17.6% of cases. Of the best postcoital tests, 78.5% correlated well with semen analyses and 90.9% with basal body temperature charts. In total, 6.2% of all pregnancies achieved in the clinics followed postcoital testing.
mesh_terms: D002582:Cervix Mucus / Q000502:physiology; D003075:Coitus; D005188:False Negative Reactions; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female / Q000175:diagnosis*; D007248:Infertility, Male / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D008722:Methods; D011247:Pregnancy; D013076:Sperm Count; D013081:Sperm Motility; D013997:Time Factors