scholarly journals Evidence-Based Lifestyle and Pharmacological Management of Infertility in Women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F Costello ◽  
William L Ledger

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most prevalent endocrine disorder in women of reproductive age and by far the most common cause of anovulatory infertility. Lifestyle change alone, and not in combination with pharmacological ovulation induction such as clomifene citrate or metformin, is generally considered the first-line treatment for the management of infertile anovulatory women with PCOS who are overweight or obese. Clomifene citrate should be considered as a first-line pharmacological therapy to improve fertility outcomes. Second-line medical treatments may include ovulation induction with gonadotropins (in clomifene citrate-resistant or clomifene citrate failure women) or laparoscopic ovarian drilling (in clomifene citrate-resistant women) or possibly with metformin combined with clomifene citrate (in clomifene citrate-resistant women). There is currently insufficient evidence to recommend aromatase inhibitors over that of clomifene citrate in infertile anovulatory women with PCOS in general or specifically in therapy-naive or clomifene citrate-resistant women with PCOS.

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Costello ◽  
Rhonda Garad ◽  
Roger Hart ◽  
Hayden Homer ◽  
Louise Johnson ◽  
...  

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common cause of anovulatory infertility in women of reproductive age. Lifestyle change is considered the first line treatment for the management of infertile anovulatory women with PCOS, and weight loss for those who are overweight or obese. First line medical ovulation induction therapy to improve fertility outcomes is letrozole, whilst other less efficacious ovulation induction agents, such as clomiphene citrate, metformin, and metformin combined with clomiphene citrate, may also be considered. Metformin combined with clomiphene citrate is more effective than clomiphene citrate alone. In obese women with PCOS, clomiphene citrate could be used in preference to metformin alone whilst clomiphene citrate could be added to metformin alone in order to improve reproductive outcome in all women with PCOS. Gonadotrophins, which are more effective than clomiphene citrate in therapy naïve women with PCOS, can be considered a first line therapy in the presence of ultrasound monitoring, following counselling on the cost and the potential risk of multiple pregnancy.


2014 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poli Mara Spritzer

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common condition in women at reproductive age associated with reproductive and metabolic dysfunction. Proposed diagnosed criteria for PCOS include two out of three features: androgen excess, menstrual irregularity, and polycystic ovary appearance on ultrasound (PCO), after other causes of hyperandrogenism and dysovulation are excluded. Based on these diagnostic criteria, the most common phenotypes are the “classic PCOS” – hyperandrogenism and oligomenorrhea, with or without PCO; the “ovulatory phenotype” – hyperandrogenism and PCO in ovulatory women; and the “non-hyperandrogenic phenotype”, in which there is oligomenorrhea and PCO, without overt hyperandrogenism. The presence of obesity may exacerbate the metabolic and reproductive disorders associated with the syndrome. In addition, PCOS women present higher risk for type 2 diabetes and higher prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors that seems to be associated with the classic phenotype. The main interventions to minimize cardiovascular and metabolic risks in PCOS are lifestyle changes, pharmacological therapy, and bariatric surgery. Treatment with metformin has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, lowering blood glucose and androgen levels. These effects are more potent when combined with lifestyle interventions. In conclusion, besides reproductive abnormalities, PCOS has been associated to metabolic comorbidities, most of them linked to obesity. Confounders, such as the lack of standard diagnostic criteria, heterogeneity of the clinical presentation, and presence of obesity, make management of PCOS difficult. Therefore, the approach to metabolic abnormalities should be tailored to the risks and treatment goals of each individual woman.


Author(s):  
Jin Ju Kim

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common disorder in reproductive-age women. In 2018, an international evidence-based guideline announced recommendations spanning a wide range of issues on the assessment and management of PCOS. From the 166 recommendations, the present study reviews those that are of particular clinical relevance for daily practice and introduces other relevant studies that have been published since the global guideline. The 2018 guideline increased the antral follicle count cutoff for the diagnosis of PCOS from 12 to 20 when using a high-frequency probe. Hirsutism was defined as having a score of ≥4–6 based on a lower percentile of 85%–90% or cluster analysis, which was lower than the traditionally used 95th percentile-based cutoff. The diagnosis of PCOS in adolescents is challenging, and irregular menstruation was defined carefully according to years from menarche. The use of ultrasonography for the diagnosis of PCOS was restricted to those 8 years after menarche. As medication for non-fertility indications, combined oral contraceptives are the first-line drug. Metformin, in addition to lifestyle modifications, should be considered for adult patients with a body mass index ≥25 kg/m2 for the management of weight and metabolic outcomes. An aromatase inhibitor is the recommended first-line medication for ovulation induction, a subsequent individual patient data meta-analysis also reported the same conclusion. Whether the new global guideline will be fully adopted by many specialists and change clinical practice is open to question. Further studies are needed to better understand and manage PCOS patients well.


2012 ◽  
Vol 08 (01) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanam Lathief ◽  
Lubna Pal ◽  
◽  

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrinopathy seen in women of reproductive age. Clinical concerns relating to PCOS range from ovulatory infertility and menstrual disorders to risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Hormonal contraceptives have been the mainstay of the management of common PCOS symptoms, such as menstrual irregularity and clinical stigmata of androgen excess (i.e., hirsutism and acne). An appreciation of the relevance of metabolic pathways in the pathophysiology of PCOS is relatively recent, and has translated into an expansion of the therapeutic strategies available for the management of PCOS. Insulin sensitizers were one of the first metabolic modulators to be incorporated in the clinical management paradigm, albeit with mixed results. Recognizing that insulin resistance is central to the pathophysiology of PCOS, newer agents—e.g., thiazolidinediones— followed, with almost comparable efficacy to metformin. Statins and most recently incretins constitute novel therapies with distinct metabolic targets that seem to hold promise in the management of PCOS. In tandem with the expansion in pharmaceuticals, a host of complementary and alternative medical therapies have generated interest for purported promise in the management of PCOS, including vitamin D, acarbose, and myo-inositol. The therapeutic options for managing PCOS-related infertility have also expanded. Clomiphene citrate (CC) has long been the first-line strategy for ovulation induction in the setting of anovulatory infertility; however, aromatase inhibitors are fast gaining acceptance as an ovulation induction strategy, with results comparable or even better than those seen with CC. An increasing level of therapeutic sophistication is reflected in ovarian stimulation protocols judiciously using gonadotropins, gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonists, the procedure of ovarian drilling, and assisted reproductive technologies within vitrooocyte maturation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 25-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artur Bjelica ◽  
Jelena Bjelanovic ◽  
Natasa Milic ◽  
Ljiljana Mladenovic-Segedi ◽  
Djordje Ilic ◽  
...  

Introduction. Polycystic ovary syndrome is the most frequent endocrine disturbance in the reproductive period of women?s life and the most frequent cause of anovulatory infertility. Ovulation and pregnancy in patients having polycystic ovary syndrome may be a result of a wide range of therapeutic options, and the treatment assumes a gradual approach - from simple noninvasive to expensive and demanding procedures. Material and Methods. A systematic literature survey concerning the efficiency of particular ovulation induction methods in respect of the reproductive outcome was carried out with the aim of establishing the algorithm for ovulation induction in infertile patients having polycystic ovary syndrome. The search was confined to clinical investigations performed on human subjects, reported in English in the period from the beginning of 2010 to June of 2014. Conclusion. As a conclusion of this system?atic survey of the efficiency of ovulation induction methods, which confirms and supplements the knowledge in this field, it is possible to form the algorithm for ovulation induction in infertile patients having polycystic ovary syndrome, consisting of the following subsequent steps: 1) modification of life style, 2) induction with clomiphene citrate 3) use of metformin, 4) use of aromatase inhibitors, 5) application of gonadotropins and laparoscopic ovarian drilling - as a second-line treatment, and 6) assisted reproductive techniques.


Author(s):  
Mahija Sahu ◽  
Nihar Ranjan Rout

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome is the commonest endocrinopathy resulting in anovulatory infertile young women. Clomifene citrate (clomiphene) is a long-standing standard drug for ovulation induction, and is still considered as first line option in PCOS women. However, clomiphene has certain disadvantage letrozole an aromatase inhibitor acts by reducing estrogen production and has no adverse effects on endometrium and cervical mucous. Indian PCOS women have high prevalence of insulin resistance and thus are likely to have high clomiphene resistance. So letrozole could prove to be a good alternative for ovulation induction in such women.Methods: This was a prospective randomized, parallel, comparative clinical trial of two ovulation induction drugs letrozole 5 mg versus clomiphene citrate 100 mg as first-line ovulation induction drug in infertile polycystic ovarian syndrome women. The target population of the study was one hundred infertile women with PCO (taking at least 2 Rotterdam’s parameters). 50 women were allocated to clomifene citrate and 50 were allocated to Letrozole for ovulation induction. Parameters like age, duration of infertility, B MI, ovulation rate, number of follicles, pregnancy rate, endometrial thickness were noted and analyzed.Results: In letrozole group, the ovulation rate, mono-follicular development, mean endometrial thickness and pregnancy rate was better in comparison to clomifene citrate group.Conclusions: The result of this study suggests that letrozole may replace clomiphene as the first line drug for ovulation induction in infertile PCOS women.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 929-941
Author(s):  
Esmee M Bordewijk ◽  
Rui Wang ◽  
Madelon van Wely ◽  
Michael F Costello ◽  
Robert J Norman ◽  
...  

Abstract BACKGROUND In our recent individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis evaluating the effectiveness of first-line ovulation induction for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), IPD were only available from 20 studies of 53 randomized controlled trials (RCTs). We noticed that the summary effect sizes of meta-analyses of RCTs without IPD sharing were different from those of RCTs with IPD sharing. Granting access to IPD for secondary analysis has implications for promoting fair and transparent conduct of RCTs. It is, however, still common for authors to choose to withhold IPD, limiting the impact of and confidence in the results of RCTs and systematic reviews based on aggregate data. OBJECTIVE AND RATIONALE We performed a meta-epidemiologic study to elucidate if RCTs without IPD sharing have lower quality and more methodological issues than those with IPD sharing in an IPD meta-analysis evaluating first-line ovulation induction for PCOS. SEARCH METHODS We included RCTs identified for the IPD meta-analysis. We dichotomized RCTs according to whether they provided IPD (shared group) or not (non-shared group) in the IPD meta-analysis. We restricted RCTs to full-text published trials written in English. We assessed and compared RCTs in the shared and non-shared groups on the following criteria: Risk of Bias (RoB 2.0), GRADE approach, adequacy of trial registration; description of statistical methods and reproducibility of univariable statistical analysis; excessive similarity or difference in baseline characteristics that is not compatible with chance; and other miscellaneous methodological issues. OUTCOMES In total, 45 trials (8697 women) were included in this study. IPD were available from 17 RCTs and 28 trials were categorized as the non-shared IPD group. Pooled risk rates obtained from the shared and non-shared groups were different. Overall low risk of bias was associated with 13/17 (76%) of shared RCTs versus 7/28 (25%) of non-shared RCTs. For RCTs that started recruitment after 1 July 2005, adequate trial registration was found in 3/9 (33%) of shared IPD RCTs versus 0/16 (0%) in non-shared RCTs. In total, 7/17 (41%) of shared RCTs and 19/28 (68%) of non-shared RCTs had issues with the statistical methods described. The median (range) of inconsistency rate per study, between reported and reproduced analyses for baseline variables, was 0% (0–92%) (6 RCTs applicable) in the shared group and 54% (0–100%) (13 RCTs applicable) in the non-shared group. The median (range) of inconsistency rate of univariable statistical results for the outcome(s) per study was 0% (0–63%) (14 RCTs applicable) in the shared group and 44% (0–100%) (24 RCTs applicable) in the non-shared group. The distributions of simulation-generated P-values from comparisons of baseline continuous variables between intervention and control arms suggested that RCTs in the shared group are likely to be consistent with properly conducted randomization (P = 0.163), whereas this was not the case for the RCTs in the non-shared group (P = 4.535 × 10−8). WIDER IMPLICATIONS IPD meta-analysis on evaluating first-line ovulation induction for PCOS preserves validity and generates more accurate estimates of risk than meta-analyses using aggregate data, which enables more transparent assessments of benefits and risks. The availability of IPD and the willingness to share these data may be a good indicator of quality, methodological soundness and integrity of RCTs when they are being considered for inclusion in systematic reviews and meta-analyses.


e-CliniC ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irwan Syah ◽  
Maria Loho ◽  
Freddt Wagey

Abstract: Polycystic ovary syndrome is the most common endocrinopathy in woman of reproductive age with an incidence that causes infertility. Woman who want to have children recomended to use ovulation induction is clomiphene citrate. Expected with the use of clomiphene citrate as first choice therapy has significcant numbers so that the use of drugs is always preffered. Purpose of this research to determine the number of pregnancies in patient with polycystic ovary syndrome with clomiphene citrate. Method used a retrospective descriptive, data of patient who treatment polycystic ovary syndrome in Prof. Dr. R. D. Kandou General Hospital Manado and practice clinical doctor conducted in the form medical therapy with clomiphene citrate. Polycystic ovary syndorme found 35 cases in the year 2012-2014 with 2 cases in Prof. Dr. R. D. Kandou General Hospital Manado and 33 cases in practice clinical doctor. Conceive with clomiphene citrate therapy were 9 people. Available data show clomiphene citrate still as the first choice drug for ovulation induction of polycystic ovary syndrome.Keywords: polycystic ovary syndrome, clomiphene citrate, succsesful, pregnancyAbstrak: Sindrom ovarium polikistik merupakan salah satu endokrinopati paling umum pada wanita usia reproduksi dengan angka kejadian yang menyebabkan infertilitas. Wanita yang ingin mempunyai anak direkomendasikan untuk induksi ovulasi adalah klomifen sitrat. Diharapkan dengan pemberian klomifen sitrat sebagai terapi pilihan pertama mempunyai angka bermakna sehingga penggunaan obat selalu diutamakan. Tujuan Penilitian ini untuk mengetahui jumlah kehamilan pada penderita sindrom ovarium polikistik dengan terapi klomifen sitrat. Metode yang digunakan bersifat retrosepktif deskriptif, data penderita sindrom ovarium polikistik yang berobat di RSUP Prof. Dr. R. D. Kandou Manado dan dokter praktek klinik yang dilakukan terapi berupa klomifen sitrat. Ditemukan 35 kasus sindrom ovarium polikistik dari tahun 2012-2014 dengan 2 kasus terdapat di RSUP Prof Dr. R. D. Kandou dan 33 kasus di dokter praktek klinik. Berhasil hamil dengan terapi klomifen sitrat sebanyak 9 orang. Data yang ada menunjukan klomifen sitrat masih sebagai pilihan pertama obat induksi ovulasi bagi penderita sindrom ovarium polikistik.Kata kunci: sindrom ovarium polikistik, klomifen sitrat, keberhasilan, kehamilan


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