Some epidemiological aspects of unexplained infertility : a cross sectional study

Abstract EN

This cross sectional study aimed to explore and compare the epidemiologic characteristics of primary (lry) and secondary (2ry) infertile couples diagnosed as unexplained infertility.

Sociodemographic, menstrual history and other data were collected from 263 infertile couples (211 with lry and 52 with 2ry unexplained infertility) who were attending the assisted reproductive Technology (ART), International Islamic Centre for Population Studies and Research (IICPSR), Al-Azhar University.

The hormonal profile of the women was also assessed.

The data were analyzed by using chi square, Fisher exact and t tests as appropriate.

The mean age of women with lry and 2ry unexplained infertility to be similar (31.1 ± 5.7 for lry and 31.9 ± 5.5 for 2ry type).

Of the studied infertile couples, about 58 % of lry type and 59 % of 2ry type were rural residents.

Most of the studied women were house wives (77 % for lry and 79% for 2ry type).

Also, Husbands with professional and skilled work accounted for 74% for lry type and 70% for 2ry type.

Statistically significant differences were observed between the two types of unexplained infertility regarding the mean estradiol (E2) level (p = 0.02) and the mean cycle length (p = 0.04).

The higher level of E2 was among women with lry type and the longer cycle duration was among women with 2ry type.

The data also showed that the majority of women were overweight and obese (82 % for women with lry and 79 % for women with 2ry type) with no statistically significant difference.

In conclusion, this study hypothesized some risk factors to be associated with unexplained infertility.

These factors are: rural residence, women and husband occupation.

It seems that some of the studied cases categorized as unexplained infertility would have factors which are not detected by available investigation such as menstrual abnormalities and overweight and obesity.

A well designed case-control studies are needed to test these hypothesized factors.