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10 September 2019

A Review of First Line Infertility Treatments and Supporting Evidence in Women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

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1
University of New South Wales, High St, Kensington, Sydney, NSW 2033, Australia
2
Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation, Monash Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, and Monash Health, Melbourne, VIC 3168, Australia
3
Division of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, The University of Western Australia, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6008, UK
4
Christopher Chen Oocyte Biology Research Laboratory, UQ Centre for Clinical Research, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4029, Australia
This article belongs to the Special Issue Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Abstract

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.

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