title: Fertility assessment in non-infertile HIV-infected women and their partners.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics, IDIBAPS, Hospital Clínic, University of Barcelona, Sabino de Arana, 1, 08028 Barcelona, Spain. ocoll@clinic.ub.es
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Coll
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lopez
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vidal
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Figueras
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Suy
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hernandez
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Loncà
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Palacio
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Martinez
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Vernaeve
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003376:Counseling; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000150:complications*; D006679:HIV Seropositivity / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D007246:Infertility / Q000209:etiology / Q000821:virology*; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012661:Semen / Q000378:metabolism / Q000821:virology; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000473:pathology