Men with early onset inflammatory arthritis ‘have fewer children’
Doctors need to raise the topic of fertility with their patients, rheumatologists say
Men with inflammatory arthritis diagnosed at younger ages report more fertility problems, survey results suggest.
Questionnaire responses from 628 men treated at eight Dutch hospitals for rheumatoid arthritis and other types of inflammatory arthritis suggest that compared to diagnosis after age 40, diagnosis before and during the peak reproductive years is linked with more childlessness and fertility problems.
In their report in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, the Dutch researchers note that in the Netherlands, most men become fathers between ages 30 and 40.
For the current study, they included men older than 40 with inflammatory arthritis who said they had completed their family.
