Non-galactorrhoeic hyperprolactinaemia in subfertile female patients: A Nigerian tertiary hospital's experience

Abstract

Non-galactorrhoeic hyperprolactinaemia is one of the major causes of infertility, usually overlooked worldwide. Observed increasing incidence and prevalence, result in high medical cost and poor outcome of infertility treatment.  The high possibility of missing this clinical entity which is usually a biochemical diagnosis need to be critically looked into as there is paucity of data in this aspect thus necessitating this study.

A cross sectional study of eighty-seven (87) sub-fertile females with age range of 31 and 42 years attending the Assisted Reproductive Unit of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (U.I.T.H) Ilorin, Nigeria were recruited for the study. Their descriptive parameters and information were extracted from their hospital folders.

Forty-eight (55.2%) of the 87 of the subfertile females had hyperprolactinaemia without galactorrhoea while thirty-nine (44.8%) had galactorrhoeic hyperprolactinaemia. Mean ages of galactorrhoeic and non-galactorrhoeic hyperprolactinaemia patients were 39.2±6.1 and 37.3±6.9 respectively, and when they were compared there was no statistically significant difference with p-value of 0.194. There was significant positive correlation between age, duration and serum level of prolactin in both galactorrhoeic and non-galactorrhoeic hyperprolactinaemia.

We concluded that non-galactorrhoeic hyperprolactinaemia is an hidden common cause of infertility and an appraisal of this clinical entity is important more so that it is the major presentation of hyperprolactinaemia in our study. The import of the study therefore is that person with suspected case of infertility should be investigated for hyperprolactinaemia even in the absence of galactorrhea as well as holistic interpretation of hormonal profile as prompt and proper treatment will yield a fruitful result.

Keywords: Non-galactorrhoeic Hyperprolactinaemia, Subfertile females, Assisted Reproductive Unit