Inflammatory bowel disease and infertility: analysis of literature and future perspectives

BACKGROUND: inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are chronic disorders that affect the gastrointestinal tract but which also present extraintestinal manifestations. One of the problems related to IBD is the presence of both female and male infertility. Aim: determine the correlation between IBD and male and female infertility by analyzing the literature. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Studies carried out in the last twenty years have been selected through the pubmed search engine. Only studies were selected that in their conclusions showed a real correlation between IBD and infertility. RESULTS: the first cause of infertility in both sexes is related to the surgical interventions that patients have to face during the course of the disease, but there are also psychological causes or causes related to the use of drugs used for therapy. CONCLUSIONS: further studies are needed to understand what are the real mechanisms underlying infertility in subjects suffering from IBD.