Prevalence of Primary Infertility in Iranian Men; A Systematic Review

Primary infertility (PI) is one of the most common problems with an increasing incidence glob-ally. Studies conducted in several parts of Iran have reported different a prevalence for this infertility type, sowe investigated PI prevalence in the Iranian male population.

This study was performed using thekeywords "primary", "infertility", "prevalence", "men", "male", and "Iran" in international databases, includ-ing MedLine, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, as well as domestic databases, including scientific informationdatabase (SID) and Magiran. We included original articles estimating PI prevalence and the cause of infertility inthe general population and infertile Iranian couples referred to infertility centers. PI prevalence in men was notreported in any included studies, so using weighting based on sample size, the average PI prevalence in the stud-ied couples and any male factors ("male" factors plus "both" factors) was estimated.

Thirty-two studieswere obtained in the initial search. Ultimately, seven studies (five studies on infertile couples and two studies onthe general population) were selected. The weighted average prevalence of PI was 81.26% (81.1-81.43) in referredinfertile couples and 5.76% (5.63-5.89) in the general population. The overall estimate of PI prevalence in thesegroups was 46.35% (46.15-46.54) and 1.93% (1.89-1.97), respectively.

The PI prevalence in differentparts of Iran has been reported in the mentioned population, there was no domestic study on PI prevalence inmen, so further studies to validate our results are needed.