Premature ovarian insufficiency: how to improve reproductive outcome?

Abstract

Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) is a life-changing condition that affects women in their reproductive age. The condition is not necessarily permanent but is associated with intermittent and unpredictable ovarian activity. Hence, spontaneous pregnancies have been reported to be 5–10%. However, pregnancy in patients with POI is still unlikely and rare. Although, there are reviews on POI in the literature, there is a lack of reports which focus on how to improve the reproductive outcome of these women who wish to conceive spontaneously or use assisted conception with their own oocytes. We found that there is no conclusive evidence of which treatment is optimal for women with POI who wish to conceive using their own gametes. However, one could surmise that it is important to lower gonadotropin levels into the physiological range before embarking on any treatment, even if natural conception is the only choice for the woman/couple. In the future, multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials should be carried out, which may entail recruitment of patients from various centers nationally and internationally to increase the sample size and therefore achieve a powered study. This may standardize the treatment of women with POI who wish to conceive and ultimately have their biological child.

Key words::

• PREMATURE OVARIAN INSUFFICIENCY
• HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY
• CONTRACEPTIVE PILL

Conflict of interest The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper.

Source of funding Nil.