Open AccessThe prevalence of celiac disease in women with infertility—A systematic review with meta‐analysis
Author(s) -
Glimberg Ida,
Haggård Linnea,
Lebwohl Benjamin,
Green Peter H. R.,
Ludvigsson Jonas F.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
reproductive medicine and biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.005
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1447-0578
pISSN - 1445-5781
DOI - 10.1002/rmb2.12374
Subject(s) - infertility , medicine , disease , population , gynecology , meta analysis , female infertility , biopsy , obstetrics , pregnancy , environmental health , genetics , biology
Purpose To determine the prevalence of celiac disease in infertile women. Methods A systematic search of four databases was conducted up until February 6, 2020. The search terms “c(o)eliac disease”, “gluten”, “vill(o)us atrophy”, “infertility” and “subfertility” yielded 1142 unique hits. Articles in other languages than English, conference abstracts, letters, and publications where relevant information was missing were excluded. In our main analysis, celiac disease had to be verified by duodenal biopsy. The titles and abstracts, and the full‐text articles were independently reviewed by two researchers. A fixed‐effect model was used to calculate the weighted prevalence. Results Based on 11 studies (1617 women), the pooled prevalence of biopsy‐confirmed celiac disease was 0.7% (95% CI = 0.2%‐1.2%) in women with any infertility. Restricting our study population to women with unexplained infertility, the pooled prevalence of biopsy‐confirmed celiac disease was 0.6% (95% CI = 0.0%‐1.6%). When including studies where celiac disease had been defined per serology (20 studies; 5158 women), the pooled prevalence of celiac disease was 1.1% (95% CI = 0.6%‐1.6%) in women with any infertility. Conclusion Our results indicate that celiac disease is not more common in infertile women than in the general population. Celiac screening in infertile women may have low yield.