The following is a summary of the “Predicting pregnancy chances leading to term live birth in oligo/anovulatory women diagnosed with PCOS,” published in the January 2023 issue of Reproductive Biomedicine Online by Gunning, et al.

Between January 2004 and December 2013, researchers at two medical schools in the Netherlands performed a prospective cohort follow-up study using standardized phenotyping. Participants’ data were linked to the Netherlands Perinatal Registry so that we could learn how their pregnancies turned out. Ovulation induction was the first line of treatment for all women because it is the standard procedure.

Pregnancy rates (that resulted in full-term, healthy babies) in the first year following a PCOS diagnosis were analyzed. Between January 2004 and January 2014, 1,779 consecutive women were diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome. About one-third of PCOS patients screened within the first year had a baby who made it to term (at least 37 weeks). Pregnancy risk factors included race, smoking, body mass index (BMI), insulin, total testosterone, and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) concentrations (c-statistic = 0.59).

White race, not smoking during pregnancy, normal body mass index, insulin, total testosterone, and SHBG all predict a higher likelihood of a successful birth. In this research, a nomogram was developed to estimate the probability of achieving a successful pregnancy (resulting in a full-term live birth) within a year of starting treatment.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1472648322007520