A systematic review of recent clinical practice guidelines and best practice statements for the evaluation of the infertile male

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Web End = Int Urol Nephrol (2015) 47:14411456 DOI 10.1007/s11255-015-1059-0

UROLOGY - REVIEW

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Web End = A systematic review of recent clinical practice guidelines and best practice statements for the evaluation of the infertile male

Sandro C. Esteves1 Peter Chan2

Received: 12 June 2015 / Accepted: 8 July 2015 / Published online: 4 August 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Conclusions While the various panels of experts who contributed to the development of the CPG and BPS reviewed should be commended on their tremendous efforts aiming to establish a clinical standard in both the evaluation and management of male infertility, we recognized inconsistencies in the methodology of their synthesis and in the contents of their nal recommendations. These discrepancies pose a barrier in the general implementation of these guidelines and may limit their utility in standardizing clinical practice or improving health-related outcomes. Continuous efforts are needed to generate high-quality evidence to allow further development of these important guidelines for the evaluation and management of males suffering from infertility.

Keywords Clinical practice guidelines Diagnosis Male infertility Standards Systematic review

Introduction

Globally, the prevalence of infertility among couples at reproductive age has been reported to be approximately 15 % [1]. The origins of the problem appear to be equally distributed between the male and female partners [1]. Taking into account the world population of 7 billion people in which approximately 40 % is at reproductive age, it is estimated that over 50 million men face infertility [2, 3]. However, only about 8 % of them seek medical assistance for fertility-related problems [4].

Infertility is customarily dened as the inability of a sexually active couple with no contraception to achieve natural pregnancy within 1 year [1]. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), infertility meets the denition of a disease which is dened as any deviation from or interruption of the normal structure or

Abstract

Purpose We systematically identied and reviewed the methods and consistency of recommendations of recently developed clinical practice guidelines (CPG) and best practice statements (BPS) on the evaluation of the infertile male....