Objective: To examine fertility in men with biopsy-verified celiac disease (CD) in light of research that suggests that men with CD have impaired sperm quality.
Design: Using multinomial logistic regression and Cox regression, we estimated the fertility of the study group compared with that of 31,677 age-matched reference male controls.
Setting: Sweden.
Patient(s): Swedish nationwide population-based cohort of 7,121 men with CD (defined according to duodenal-jejunal biopsy data with [Marsh III] villous atrophy) ages 18-54 years at some point before the end of follow-up.
Main outcome measure(s): Number of children according to the Swedish Multi-Generation Register.
Result(s): During follow-up, men with CD had 9,935 children compared with 42,245 among controls. Adjusting for age, calendar period, and parity and stratifying by education, the overall fertility hazard ratio in the men with biopsy-verified CD was 1.02 (95% confidence interval, 0.99-1.04).
Conclusion(s): This study found a normal fertility in men with diagnosed CD.
Copyright © 2011 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.