Access to infertility investigations and treatment in couples infected with HIV: questionnaire survey

摘要

Life expectancy among patients infected with HIV has increased since combination anti-HIV therapies were introduced. This has led to calls for infertility in people with HIV to be treated in an identical way to that in patients with other chronic medical conditions. Two broad groups of patients infected with HIV are likely to request infertility treatment. The first group consists of couples in which only one partner is infected with HIV (serodiscordant couples) who would like to have children but who wish to avoid the transmission of the virus to the uninfected partner; they may not be subfertile. The second group consists of serodiscordant couples who are subfertile and have tried to conceive spontaneously (with the attendant risks) without success and subfertile couples in which both partners are infected with HIV who would like to have children. We determined whether couples presenting to infertility clinics are offered investigations and treatment when one or both partners are known to be infected with HIV.