Reproductive Flashcards
What are the conception rates at: - 6 months - 12 months - 2 years What is the shape of a graph with conception rate against time?
Cumulative conception rates: 6 months - 75%; 12 months - 90%; and 2 years 95%. Each month of trying, the number of people who can conceive goes up.
Initially, very steep cure, then at around two months tails off
What is the definition of infertility?
What is primary and secondary infertility?
Infertility = failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months of more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse (in absence of known reason) in a couple who have never had a child (WHO definition). Either primary (couple never conceived) or secondary (couple previously conceived, although pregnancy may not have been successful e.g. miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy).
Give 7 factors which increase your chance of conception, related to:
- Age
- PMHx
- Duration of trying to conceive
- Timing of intercourse
- BMI
- Smoking
- Caffeine
- Woman aged under 30 years
- Previous pregnancy - if you’ve previously been pregnant, your changes of achieving pregnancy again goes up
- Less than three years trying to conceive
- Intercourse occurring during the six days before ovulation, particularly two days before ovulation
- Woman’s body mass index (BMI) 20-30
- Both partners non-smokers
- Caffeine intake less than two cups of coffee daily
At what age does fertility start to decline?
20
What are the four groups of causes of infertility?
Unexplained
Tubal
Ovulation
Male
Give some causes of anovulatory infertility
- Physiological
- Hypothalamic
- Pituitary
- Ovarian
- Others
Physiological - puberty, pregnancy, lactation, menopause
Hypothalamic - anorexia nervosa, bulimia, excessive exercise
Pituitary - hyperprolactinaemia, tumours
Ovarian - PCOS, premature oviarian failure
Others - chronic renal failure, drugs, endocrine disorders
In anorexia nervosa, what will be the values of:
- FSH
- LH
- Oestradiol
All three will be low
In PCOS, what will the following be like?
Free androgens
LH
Glucose tolerance test
High free androgens
High LH
Impaired glucose tolerance
Premature ovarian failure - Give some possible causes - Clinical features? - FSH, LH, oestradiol? When should you measure LH and FSH?
Causes - idiopathic, genetic (Turner’s syndrome, fragile X), chemotherapy, radiotherapy, oophorectomy.
Clinical Features: hot flushes, night sweats, atrophic vaginitis.
High FSH
High LH
Low oestradiol
Give some infective and non-infective causes of tubal disease in infertility
Infective
- Pelvic inflammatory disease* (chlamydia, gonorrhoea, other: anaerobes, syphilis, TB)
- Transperitoneal spread: appendicitis, intra-abdominal abscess
- Following procedure: IUCD insertion, hysteroscopy, HSG
Non-infective
- Endometriosis
- Surgical (sterilisation, ectopic pregnancies)
- Fibroids
- Polyps
- Congenital
What is hydrosalpinx?
What might cause it?
Clinical features?
A hydrosalpinx is a distally blocked fallopian tube filled with serous or clear fluid. The blocked tube may become substantially distended giving the tube a characteristic sausage-like or retort-like shape. It can be caused by PID Clinical features - Abdominal/pelvic pain febrile - Vaginal discharge dyspareunia - Cervical excitation menorrhagia - Dysmenorrhoea - Infertility - Ectopic pregnancy
What is the ultrasound appearance of endometriosis?
“chocolate” cyst
Name five groups of causes of male infertility and their incidence?
Hypothalamic/pituitary - 1-2% Testicular disease - 30-40% Obstruction/transport - 10-20% Unexplained - 40-50% Others - 5-10%
Give six endocrine causes of male infertility
- Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (e.g. Kallmann syndrome, anorexia)
- Testicular failure (Klinefelter’s syndrome: 47 XXY, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, undescended testes, idiopathic)
- Hyperprolactinaemia (macro or microadenoma) – treated very easily with dopamine agonists
- Acromegaly
- Cushing’s disease
- Hyper or hypothyroidism
Obstructive male infertility
- Examples?
- Clinical features?
- LH, FSH, testosterone?
E.g. congenital absence (cystic fibrosis), infection, vasectomy.
Clinical features
- Normal testicular volume
- Normal secondary sexual characteristics
- Vas deferens may be absent
Normal LH, FSH and testosterone
Non-obstructive causes of male infertility
- Examples?
- Clinical features?
- LH, FSH, testosterone?
E.g. 47 XXY, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, undescended testes, idiopathic.
Clinical features
- Low testicular volume
- Reduced secondary sexual characteristics
- Vas deferens present
Endocrine features
High LH, FSH and low testosterone
When investigating a woman with infertility, when in the menstrual cycle do you measure progesterone, and why do you measure this?
Midluteal progesterone level (day 21 of 28 day cycle or 7 days prior to expected period in prolonged cycles), progesterone > 30nmol/l suggestive ovulation.